


"Mums, Yer Boys Are Cryin'"

by waveofahand



Category: McLennon - Fandom, The Beatles (Band)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Chapters and chapters of angst and comfort, John's dressing Paul, Kissed bruises, M/M, McLennon, Paul takes on Mimi and wins, Paul's dressing John again, Slow Build, Started as a one shot but was encouraged into chapters, Wakes & Funerals, julia is dead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-05-01 17:31:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 53,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19182481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveofahand/pseuds/waveofahand
Summary: “How do you get over this,” John asked his friend directly. “How do you go on?”Paul barked a regretful laugh. “You’re asking me? Clearly, I ain’t over anything, son.”John reached over, covering his friend’s hand with his own. “You know, Macca, it’s only been what, a year and a little? Maybe it’s okay that you ain’t over her passin’. Pretty sure it’s gonna take longer than that for me.” He moved his hand away. “And you’re wrong. You’re a good friend.” He tamped out his ciggie and looked away. “You’re me best mate, and I thank ya.” And then more softly, “You might be everything, now.”





	1. "I Have to Be With Him..."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Julia is dead and John has gone missing. Paul McCartney will do anything to find him and bring him back , safe and sound, to Mimi, even if it means fighting with his father. 
> 
> *** This is entirely a work of fiction, hewn out of my own imagination. Also, Ellen Rattigan is a fictional character who does not exist outside of my mind. I do not own the Beatles.***

**Tuesday, July 15, 1958**

 

Supper was late and Jim McCartney, tired from a long day at an unsatisfying job, was unusually annoyed with his son. The 16 year-old Paul could normally be counted on to get things rolling on the evening meal so it would not be a long wait to eat, and then there would be clean up and finally to settle down with a cup of tea, and a bit of time on the piano or with the wireless, before it was time for bed. Too soon the whole draining process of being a workingman and the single father of two young sons would begin again.

“Michael,” he called out, “set the places for supper, please. And where is your brother got to? Why isn’t he here?” As if I didn’t know, he grumbled to himself. With that Lennon boy, of course. A bad seed, that one. Paul’s excellent grades were going to suffer next term if he didn’t buckle down and give as much attention to his studies as to that so-called “band” that was taking up so much of his time.

And that Lennon, with his Teddy ways, the surface manners that seemed to travel on a shiny veneer of contempt for nearly everyone. And that look he had about him, as though life were nothing but a big joke.

Life, Jim McCartney knew, was too serious to shuffle along with. Things could turn on a dime, and then you’re scraping by, making do and darning socks long past mending and going to bed alone because the one you love has been taken too soon…too soon.

Well, his Paul was going to be reminded that music was an alright pastime – Jim himself was a musician, as were many of the McCartney’s and he understood how it could soothe by a lonely hour or liven up an evening’s company – but the world would be demanding something more of him than a guitar and a silly hairstyle. Tonight, he would have words with his elder son, try to catch him by the jumper and remind him of who he was and what he owed the family, while his sweet nature could still be worked upon.

He hated to be hard, but Jim McCartney knew that Paul had it in him to really be someone – to break out of the lower class that had such a stranglehold on all of them since their families, his and dear Mary’s, had come to Liverpool to find work and escape the dreary, dream-killing poverty of Ireland. The lad was smart, not so much with the maths, but he knew his literature and his history and his marks at school were high enough that Mary had dreamed of his becoming a doctor, while Jim hoped to see him grow into a university lecturer.

Imagine that! A McCartney as a physician, or holding forth on Shakespeare before a crowded hall of higher-born students. Unthinkable before now, but Paul McCartney had the potential to bring that about, make them all proud, if he would just stay in line, be responsible, and remember his priorities.

He watched young Mike set out places for the supper, thinking what a good example Paul had been to his brother up to now. It couldn’t be allowed to change. “Did you hear what I asked, son? Where is your brother? With that Lennon?”

“Not sure, Da,” the boy answered. “Haven’t seen him at all. Why do you always call John ‘that Lennon’, Da? He’s so cool.”

Jim couldn’t stop a smile from tugging at his lips. “That’s just the thing, lad. He’s so very cool. In too many ways.”

“I like him, though. He’s always nice to me.”

“Well, that’s a thing, anyway, isn’t it?” His father said as he gave the potatoes a stir.

They heard the front door open with a crash, and there was Paul making a mad dash up the stairs, slamming the door to the loo. A flush. A handwash, and then he was scrambling back down, making his way toward the street again.

“Paul!” Jim called out, heading through the living room to catch him. “Paul, hold on.”

His son stopped, one hand on the doorknob, the other holding a light jacket, although he already wore a sweater. Paul turned to his father, his face flushed, bathed in a sheen of sweat. He was breathing heavily, as though he’d been running a long way. “Not now, Da, please,” he panted, “I’ve got to go - ”

“You’ll go nowhere until you explain to me why you’ve let the supper go unattended and left your brother to himself all day,” his father said with a frown communicating serious displeasure. “Little enough is asked of you, lad, and it’s not like you’ve a job to distract you.”

Paul closed his eyes and kicked back at the door with one foot as if he were angry at himself. “I’m sorry, Da, truly. I’ve lost track of the time. But I’ve got --”

“You’ve got to have a meal with your family, like a civilized person, and then you and I need to have a talk.”

“No, sorry, I’m not hungry, and I have to -- ”

“It wasn’t a request, Paul. Consider it a command performance, and get in the kitchen to help.”

“ _Fuck the supper_ , Da, I’m --” The sentence went unfinished as Paul felt the sharp sting of his father’s hand upon his cheek, and they both gasped.

It was no small thing for Jim McCartney to take a hand to one his boys. Promises had been made about that. And now, father and son stood looking at each other in a kind of dazed horror, mirroring one another as they each brought a hand to their own cheeks – Paul to feel the tingle that was already threatening to swell, Jim to feel the heat of his own shame. He’d struck his son, and his gut was roiling at his own action, his surprisingly quick fury.

But Paul had to know he’d earned that. For that matter, Michael had to see it, before he ever thought he could talk to his father like that and get away with it.   

“You’ll not use that tone or that language on me, son,” he said, forcing himself to hold a gaze with Paul, whose huge eyes betrayed a humiliation Jim found almost unbearable to behold. “If this is what hangin’ about with that Lennon and that band is bringin’ out in you, we’ll just end all that tonight. I’ll not have it. You’ll keep a civil tongue in your head, or it's done.”

Paul held his father’s stare for a long moment, startling Jim with a look of unreserved anger (and with a confusion behind it he’d never seen in his son), before he ducked his head down and looked away.

“I am sorry, Da. I am. But John’s missing…” He looked up again, his eyes shining black with determination. “John’s run off, and I have to find him.”

Jim couldn’t hold back his disgust as he sighed, “I knew it. He’s no good, son. Likely he’s off with one of his hoodlum friends, and you’ll not go off with him this night and join up with that, if I have to hold you back with my own hands.”

Paul kicked the door again, this time in frustration, and shook his head, gritting his teeth and growing ruddy as he as he raised his voice, another rare event.

“God, will you listen, Da? Will you _listen_?” He lifted his chin in his first open defiance of his father. “You’ll not keep me. I have to find John.” His voice broke at his friend’s name, and Paul stopped, gulping hugely at Jim McCartney before he could choke out the words. “His ma’s dead... Julia.” Paul could hear Mike gasp from across the room.

“She’d been visiting at Mimi’s, and as she was crossing the street to head home she was hit by a car. She’s gone. John’s lost his mum.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Jim breathed, crossing himself and closing his eyes, his whole body registering the news like a punch to the gut, dragging his proud shoulders down. “It’s too awful.”

“John’s gone off,” Paul continued. “No one knows where. I have to find him. I have to be with him.”

“Aye…” Jim went to Paul, patting his shoulder, suddenly gleaning why Paul had the jacket with him. A good lad. “You do. Sure, he’ll need a friend who knows…”

Paul nodded. “He does. He needs me.”

“And I’m sure his auntie needs him, too, poor woman. Poor lad.”

They stood like that for a moment, a Northern man and his son, both looking down, no longer able to hold a gaze because the moment was too tender, too dear, their own wounds at the loss of Mary McCartney still too fresh to bear sharing through a meeting of eyes and minds. Paul was nodding, his own hand upon his father’s. He gulped again.

“So…I have to go, Da, I’ve no idea where he is.”

His father’s nod answered his own. “Aye, you go. I’ll save a plate for you.”

“Thank you. I don’t think I’ll be hungry, though. Not sure I'll be home.” Paul patted his father’s hand and opened the door, stepping outside, and felt his father pull him back a step. His eyes full of regret, Jim silently raised a hand to Paul’s cheek, delicately touching the red mark he’d left there only minutes before. “Be careful.” He leaned in and gave his son a quick, fleeting kiss there. “I’m proud of you, Paul.”

Paul stood raised his eyes, a blush building as his nerves fluttered a bit and his eyes began to tear up. His father hadn’t kissed him since his mum had died, and now both of them let out shuddering breaths at the memory. “Tell your friend…” Jim bit back the words, “When you find him, tell _John_ …tell him I am very sorry for his trouble.”

“I will, Da. Thank you.” Paul closed the door quietly as he left.

***

He’d spent hours looking, checking with their bandmates and all of their mutual friends, but no one had seen John Lennon. Paul even headed out to Upton Green on the off-chance – the admittedly very off chance – that John had simply started wandering and had ended up at George’s place. It wasn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility, after all. Paul recalled all too well the sense of disorientation that had gripped him when his own mother had died, and how he had moved through the city all out of focus, like a blind man without a stick, until he’d suddenly found himself on George’s doorstep, just standing there, announcing to whoever opened the door, “My mum is dead,” and feeling Louise Harrison -- that warm, giving woman -- tugging him into her arms as he wept his first open tears in grief against her softness.

It had been like reliving the moment, seeing the same scrubbed door open to him as he brought the same bad news, this time, “John’s ma is dead.” And once again, Louise drawing him to herself, hugging him with one arm as she closed the door, and called after George.

He’d stayed for a bit – Louise seemed determined not to permit Paul to leave without a cuppa and some toast, and some biscuits for in case he found John.

“She’s everyone’s mum, now, isn’t she? It's her way,” George shrugged as he stood with Paul, offering to join him in his search and reaching for a jumper. Considering it, Paul finally shook his head. “Be glad for your company, but…no. I think…I don’t want to overwhelm him, yeah? I need to just find him, meself. But thanks, Georgie, you’re a one.”

***

He found John, finally, in the growing shadows of the golf course that lay between their neighborhoods, slumped down upon himself, smoking and staring at his shoes as the blackbirds chattered in the gloaming. He was sniffling and shivering in the damp air.

Paul stood above him thinking how much he wished he did not have to be here, doing this. He recognized in John the defeated posture that had been his own all-too recently.

“Hey,” he said softly, “I’ve found you, John, love.”

John hesitated before raising his head to Paul, unwilling to be seen, to show the younger lad his eyes. “I’m almost out of ciggies,” he said, rubbing his forehead, “have any?”

“A few.” Paul joined him on the ground and put his jacket around John’s rounded shoulders. “You’ll catch a cold out here, son, if you stay. I can hear you snuffling your snot already and you’ll be sneezing soon. From the damp and all, you know.”

John nodded, drawing the jacket more tightly about him. “Aye, it’s the damp. Ta, Paul.”

They sat in silence, watching small bunnies dart about in the green grass, taking their supper before darkness fell, listening to the last buzzing of the bees before they retired and the starlings and martins fluttering about. “It gets so busy, this time of day,” Paul mused, just to make conversation, put something out there for John to focus on besides his exquisite pain.

He’d always loved to watch the birds and wondered why he’d never thought of the golf course as a natural bird sanctuary – here they were, tattling and slooping like colorful fireworks amid the dying skylight. All wild and alive in the midst of gloomy death.

“There’s bluebirds,” he pointed out to John who looked away, only turning back after he’d swallowed and released a great sigh. By then, the birds had flown past.

Paul lit two cigarettes at once, passing one to John. “Me mum used to talk about how the world -- how the wee creatures, anyway – would all come out in the twilight, like now, and be all so noisy. She said her ma, my gran, had told her they were making their own sort of vespers, yeah? Like they were sayin’ evenin’ prayer for the rest of us.”

He studied John’s face, so determinedly, resolutely closed. “Evensong, you know? As if we learned it from them. Her Irish fancy, o’ course, but still…I always liked that.”

John Lennon exhaled a huge cloud of smoke and gave Paul a blank stare before biting out his words with a voice like a flick knife. “You do know my mum is dead, right? And you're comin’ here telling me about your mother and your granny and all?”

Paul nodded, letting the flick-sting pass him by, not holding on to it as he watched the birds. “I know, John. And you know I couldn’t be sorrier about it. Everyone is. Georgie, the band, all our mates. It’s just, you know…it’s good to remember the things our mums have told us. I think it is.”

John managed a grunt that sounded half a growl, and leaned forward into his lap, hiding his face in his hands, murmuring something indecipherable.

“What say?” Paul asked, leaning forward, laying a hand upon John’s shoulder. “Didn’t get that, son.”

“A fucking copper,” John repeated beneath his hand. “Off-duty and full of the drink. He just mowed her down.”

“Christ,” Paul gasped. “I’d not heard that bit. Oh God, I’m sorry Johnny.” He wasn’t sure how it could be but somehow that made Julia’s death seem even worse, more unjust. Not just an accident, then, but a true recklessness. Someone so selfish that he didn’t care how his own actions could steal so much from the lives of others. He ran his hand across John’s shoulders as his friend shuddered his way through tears he was unwilling to show, and Paul didn’t think he could bear to see.

“Yeah, a fucking cop,” John said, sitting up straighter, putting the jacket. He quickly wiped his eyes and cheeks with the backs of his hands and squinted. “I have a headache.”

“You’re probably hungry, then,” Paul said as he reached into his pocket (grateful now for how pushy and insistent Louise had been) and handed John the biscuits, wrapped in a small paper. “From George’s mum. She’s sorry for your trouble, John. As is my da. And Mike.”

 _She’s everybody’s mum, now, isn’t she?_ Paul decided not to repeat George’s words – true as they seemed -- to John, at this moment.

John unwrapped the biscuits, but seemed to forget them immediately. “I’m not sure I can do this, Paul.” He said.

“Eat them, they’re good. And you need your strength.”

He turned his head sharply to Paul, narrowing his eyes, “Are you being deliberately obtuse?”

"Aye." Paul looked back at John, his eyes huge with a shared sorrow, as though he was trying to wrap his friend up and bring him inside himself with the power of a look, so they would neither of them ever have to talk about this again with actual, useless words. “You can do it, John. If I can, you can.” He took his friend’s wrist as Lennon silently shook his head, ‘no’.

“Yes, you can. I know you can. You’re much stronger than I.”

“How?” The question was wrenched from the depths of John’s misery. “ _How,_ Macca? I keep thinking of all the times I fucked up, all the times I used my sharp tongue just to…I don’t know, have a little of my own back, make her realize…make her hurt and watch her smile fade away, just so she’d know...”

“That she’d hurt you first. And that you were still feelin' it.”

“As if it mattered!” John howled. “As if all of my fucking fuss and all my stinkin' furies meant anything in the face of it. My fucking stupid…it didn’t matter, did it, after all?” He turned toward Paul, breathing hard in his regret. “I feel like…I threw away so much time playin’ that game, and it left so little of her, then, to be with. To hold on to. I’m not goin’a get that time back, Macca, and I’ve no way to undo the things I did, the words I said…” He gripped the collar of Paul’s shirt, nearly choking his friend as wrapped the fabric in his hand, pulling tight, forcing Paul to move forward if he wanted to keep breathing.

“John, too tight,” Paul gasped out, both of his hands coming to John’s face as his own went scarlet. “John…” Paul stared into Lennon’s wild eyes, wondering if John could even see him, and how to get through to wherever he had taken himself. Straining to swallow, he put pressure on either side of John’s face. “Johnny…” he said again, and getting no response, he leaned in, quickly kissing his friend’s lips, and then his forehead.

It was enough. Paul’s unexpected kisses shocked John back into himself and he released the younger lad from his chokehold roughly, with a stunned and mortified expression. “Oh, God…sorry, Paul…”

“It’s okay, John,” Paul started.

“I’m sorry…I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry, please…”

And suddenly John was in Paul’s arms, letting loose with a high-pitched, agonized keen -- so loud, so terrifyingly raw and primal that it drove the birds from the tree above them, and warned the small creatures away from their little patch. “I’m sorry, oh, God, forgive me...I’m sorry." A sob hitched his words, spinning out his apologia into an uneven wail. "I’m so sorrrry…”

And Paul was rocking him, and patting his back, and breathing words that he knew John wouldn’t hear but that still needed saying – the soft croons of comfort and consolation, whispering that it was alright, and that if it wasn’t really alright now, it would be someday, and that John was forgiven -- of _course_ he was forgiven, because no one was to blame…no one at all was to blame for all that remained of the slip-ups and faults that seemed to remain and to resonate between the living and the dead. It was all just how it worked in a broken and hurting world, wasn’t it, after all?

Paul whispered as tenderly as he could, hoping John could not hear the strain of his voice as he lost a battle with his own empathetic tears, because he knew that John’s apology, wailed out toward the heavens, wasn’t being made to Paul, but to Julia. He recognized a boy’s cry to his mother, for forgiveness, for redemption, for a way back to love, to something sane and kind and comfortable when her leaving felt like so much madness, like such a cold and endless night that will never be warm again.

Paul knew well that cry, knew well that coldness, because he’d made the same desperate pleas, offered the same contrition to Mary McCartney, and to God, as he’d all but flogged himself with regret for his stupid, immature, insecure remarks – foolish words he wished he had resisted and never said -- smug, asinine words of no use to anyone or anything beyond his own insecure self -- because it was too late, after all to take them back. The fresh-mouthed way he had mocked his mother once, teasing her for “trying to talk posh,” and seeing her embarrassment. The way he’d gaped, trembling and understanding nothing the only time he’s seen his mum in hospital – her pale face, her weak voice, and those damned bloody sheets he would never forget. “Pray with me, my lovies,” she had breathed, and he and Mike had managed to gasp out a “Hail Mary” while they stared at each other, too terrified to look at their suddenly frail mother.

And just days later, “She’s gone, son,” and Paul, stupid fucker, stupid, thoughtless, scared Paul, blurted out, “What will we do without her money?” Without her earnings, he had meant -- and what sort of son, what sort of senseless, mercenary, idiotic, unloving, cold-hearted son was he to say it? To come out with that to his da’s own face and before his mother’s body was cold?

The horror of himself, James Paul McCartney! He would never forget it, never forgive himself. Perhaps his mother would – perhaps she already had. Perhaps God would forgive it, maybe, if God was really good. But he would never forgive it. Even now, as he held his best friend in a deathgrip, as the tried to console John with all the right words, he knew they could never be true words for him, that he would never accept “It’s alright, no one is to blame.” He was to blame, and he would take it as he'd earned it. If no one else would be hard on him for his mistakes he would be hard on himself, and forever, and forever, and for as long as his mother Mary would be lost to him, and forevermore.

And forever.

From the periphery of his own grief, he began to realize that John had quietened, his wailing had mellowed into soft, quivering sobs as his tears began to slow. He was still clinging to Paul with all of his strength, but no longer choking on his sorrow. His head was resting fully on Paul’s shoulder, his hands gently rubbing circles on Paul’s back. It almost felt like reciprocation, but a sincere one. As though John was trying to give back to Paul a measure of consolation as they continued that slow rocking, back-and-forth.

Paul hadn’t noticed, actually, that he was crying a fully as John, that they'd each of them gone lost in the depths of their shared torments and heartache. The two boys were snuffling and groaning and shivering and burying their faces into each other’s necks as though this was the only safe place left in the world.

Christ, what a useless loser of a friend he was, Paul thought as he comprehended his own state. Come to support John and here he is, falling all to pieces like this, needing consolation for his own self, like an infant. “I’m not much use to you,” he sniffled at John, “I’m a bad friend, I’m sorry.” He shrugged, trying to remove himself from his partner’s solid grasp. “I’ve no business tellin’ you anything, when I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about. And I need a ciggie. And I’m sorry.”

They released each other, finally, feeling the cool night air come across their chests as they parted and this time John lit two cigarettes, passing one to Paul. They smoked in the new stillness of a blue-tinged night, both of them studiously, purposely ignoring the way their bodies seemed to shiver as they inhaled, and then convulse with release as they blew their clouds, tilting their heads to heaven as they watched the stars come out, holding their faces in their palms whenever that felt too much like an undeserved peace.

“How do you get over this,” John asked his friend directly. “How do you go on?”

Paul barked a remorseful laugh. “You’re asking me? Clearly, I ain’t over anything, son.”

John reached over, covering his friend’s hand with his own. “You know, Macca, it’s only been what, a year and a little? Maybe it’s okay that you ain’t over her passin’. Pretty sure it’s gonna take longer than that for me.” He moved his hand away. “And you’re wrong. You’re a good friend.” He tamped out his ciggie and looked away. “You’re me best mate, and I thank ya.” And then more softly, “You might be everything, now.”

“Maybe you don’t get over it,” Paul said softly, having missed that last bit, “Maybe you just…kiss her up to God, you know? Say, ‘God, you’ve got me mum. Don’t fuck with her. Just…just help me remember her.’ And maybe that’s all there is, the memory, and we just hang on to that for all it’s worth. ‘God gave us memory, that we might have roses in December.’”

John raised his eyebrows. “That Shakespeare?”

“Naw, the Peter Pan guy, I think. Whatsis...Barrie. Anyway... I hope the memory is enough. Sometimes I feel like I can’t remember what my mum looked like, and that’s…it’s a bad, crazy feeling. Like, what son forgets his mum? Am I a bad son? Did I even love her?”

“You know, Paul,” John leaned into him, until they were shoulder to shoulder, and murmured at him, as though he were telling a secret. “I know I just said you’re me best mate, and it’s true an’ all. But Christ, you’re crap at this.”

Paul rubbed his forehead as he heard Lennon stifle a rueful laugh, then swallowed his own. “I know,” he sympathized. “I’m crap. I’m sorry. My arse is cold and I’m crap, and I’m sorry.”

John stood and pulled Paul up beside him. “Let’s go home, then, before it rains. Mimi is probably putting up tea, you know…”

“She probably needs you,” Paul said, remembering his father’s words.

“Aye. I know. But…for what? I don’t know if I have anything for her.”

Paul shrugged. “Just be around, then.” He pushed away the memory of his father sending him and Mike away after Mary's death. "I'm sure she wants you with her through all that's coming."

“Will you stay?” John asked a little tentatively as they headed toward Mendips. “I know it won’t feel happy, but can you come in with me, and stay, yeah?”

“If Mimi doesn’t’ mind, yeah.”

“She won’t mind. Why should she?”

“Oh, aye? Wasn’t too many weeks ago I asked if I could come in and she said, 'No, you may not, with those sheep eyes and your dirty shoes. You’ll wait for John in the yard!'”

John burst out in unexpected laughter at Paul’s precisely accurate mimicry. Hearing his friend's laughter like a balm to the younger boy’s own ragged heart.

“She didn’t say that,” John chuckled.

“Aye, but she did you know. And then she gave me one of her baleful old glances, like she was the queen, and I was a commoner who forgot to bow and tug a forelock.”

“Well…” John allowed, still laughing. “You can’t say she’s not consistent.” He looked over at Paul, and saw the smile playing at his lips, a contrast to his red and puffy eyes. “But you’ll stay, right? You won’t leave?”

Paul took his arm, wondering how John would ever find his way home in the dark, with no glasses and his own eyes so tellingly swollen.

“I won’t leave ya, John, love. I’ll stay. I’ll be with you through all of it, yeah?”

John sighed, betraying one last shivery breath. “Good. Thank you, Macca. Couldn’t do it any other way.” 

 

 

 

 


	2. The Re-Education of Mimi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paul returns a grieving John to Mendips and resists Mimi's dismisal, informing her that he will be staying a few days, because John has asked it, and then more or less taking over her household and completely -- and quite deliberately -- disorienting her in the process.

Having stationed herself by the front window almost continually for hours, a weary Mimi shook off her anxiety as she saw John approaching the house. She could see his shoulders were rounded, his posture sluggish and defeated looking and that boy, Paul, seemed to be leading him homeward, one arm over John’s shoulder, his head bent toward him as he spoke to her unresponsive nephew.

“You’ve missed tea,” Mimi said to John, who didn’t even look at her as Paul pulled him inside, murmuring something about summer and the damp and the comfort of a small fire. The boy looked her way as he stripped John of a shabby too-small jacket that she’d never seen before and sat him nearest to the warm. “Evening, Mimi,” he said, “I’m sorry for your trouble.” Not waiting for her to respond, he headed up the stairs toward John’s room only to return with a jumper he threw over to John. “Get that on, John, love. My jacket was less than useless, weren’t it?”

“Thank you for bringing John home,” Mimi said. She was mannerly but slightly less imperious than usual, given the wear of the day. “I made tea – hours ago, actually – but I suppose I can put up a fresh pot.”

“Aye, hot tea would be lovely, ta.” Paul said. Looking over the thin and wilting selection of sandwiches on offer he tapped John’s shoulder, said he’d be right back, and then followed Mimi into the kitchen. “Have you any eggs, Mimi? Let’s get something warm into John, then. Eggs and toast will do.” He threw her a self-deprecating smirk. “A good thing, too, because it’s something I can reliably make.”

As immune as ever to Paul’s efforts to charm her, Mimi began to bristle. “I’ve already laid out sandwiches, but if John would like an egg, I can make that for him.”

In mere moments, she found herself clucking in some confusion at the altogether presumptuous and self-possessed way Paul began to simply work around her, as though she didn’t exist. Making himself quite at home, he was, confidently gathering eggs, milk, and – after a moment’s consideration, butter -- as he got down to business. He was managing to somehow completely ignore Mimi, but with detached and impeccable courtesy.

“You’ve no need to trouble yourself, young man,” Mimi said in her sternest voice. “I’m quite fit to take care of my nephew. I thank you for finding John, but you can go home, now. Your father is probably wanting you.” As she clearly was not, read the subtext.

The teenager turned toward her as he whisked together eggs and milk, and his expression stopped Mimi in her tracks. Gone were the overwide lift of eyebrows and the batting eyelashes that had never worked on her before. Paul was giving her a dark, steady look that said he would brook no argument – a direct challenge to her, issued through eyes that were, she now noticed, as red and puffy as John’s own. “I’ll be stayin’, Mimi. A couple of days, at least. John’s asked me to. You’ll be fine with that, yeah?”

Paul turned away in absolute placidity and Mimi heard the pan hiss as he threw a dab of butter into it and started cooking, quite visibly unconcerned whether Mimi was fine with it or not.

She rinsed the teapot in brittle silence, blinking several times in Paul’s direction as though she couldn’t believe the cheek of him. Why, here she was, preparing fresh tea leaves in her own kitchen and feeling all but shoved aside!

She had no idea what to make of this confounding, dictatorial iteration of Paul McCartney, who seemed at once a creature rough and mild. When she looked at him again, he was biting his lip thoughtfully and turning a piece of bread into toast over a flame. “When my mum passed, I couldn’t get enough eggs and milk,” he said in a low tone. “Craved ‘em constantly. My auntie said I’d exhausted the chickens, drained the cows, and launched them into psychosis with my need.”

Mimi said nothing, merely giving her head a half-turn in Paul’s direction, and raising one eyebrow as he continued, his eyes focused on his work. “I read later that eggs and milk, or eggs and cream, really, with butter, was what doctors were used to prescribe for upper class ladies when they were dealing with -- what they’d called it, then? _Nerves_. Right. Whatever that was.” Paul shrugged with a skeptical expression. “Just comfort food, to me. Likely that’s all it ever was to anyone, highborn or low, whether it’s nerves or grief that has hold of us. Common foods for common comfort.”

He caught Mimi’s eye, then, and this time he offered her placating smile. “There’s the kettle,” he said gently, as though he understood that he’d bewildered the woman in her own galley. “You look all done-in, Mimi, why don’t you go sit with John, and I’ll be right behind you.”

Mimi, weary indeed yet pointedly taking her time because she would never allow anyone to believe they were telling her what to do – most especially not within her own household -- was nevertheless only too glad to pour the water and make an escape back to her nephew.

John had put on the jumper. He was slouched forward – head down, elbows on his knees, with a cigarette nearly burned down to his fingers. “Sit up straight, John,” Mimi tsked at him. “Have some tea. Your little friend is coming with eggs for you.”

“For both of you,” Paul said, hot on her trail as promised, and carrying two plates full of scrambled eggs and toast. He placed one plate before John and the other before Mimi, murmuring at her in a way that felt, again, like a presuming intimacy, “Get something warm inside of you, Mimi, to take away that chill.”

He threw a wink at John, who appreciated The McCharmley’s little jest – that subtle jab at Mimi’s constant freeze-out, served up with a plateful of plausible deniability. On any other day Mimi might have been sharp enough to catch it, but it had been a long, dreadful afternoon and evening, every bit as much for Mimi as for John, and as she contemplated the fresh dish of steaming eggs, the light scent of butter wafting from them, her natural defenses seemed to collapse. She ate a flavorful forkful – the boy knew how to use salt and pepper properly, at least -- and then another, and then she and John were silently digging in, setting sorrow to the side for a moment in order to actually feel their hunger and feed it. They added big dollops of marmalade to their toast, and more sugar than usual to their tea, and Paul settled in, contenting himself with the past-stale sandwiches and his own cuppa as he watched them in silence and refilled their teacups before they were even drained.

“This was good, Macca, ta.” John said with a last gulp, finally looking up from his food and taking a breath as he sat back. “Hadn’t realized I was about to perish for need of it.”

“Yes. Thank you, Paul,” said ever-proper Mimi, even as she turned her head the other way and investigated whether there might yet be a drop left in the teapot.  

“I can put up more tea if you like,” Paul answered, still working that rather terrifyingly efficient mode he’d barged in with, “but I was wondering where you keep your whiskey, Mimi?”

“Whiskey,” she scoffed. “There’s no need for _whiskey_ , and you’re much too young, whatever your own family’s habits might be.”

Paul turned an expressionless face to John, as though signaling that Mimi had failed a test or lost her turn to speak in this round. “John?”

Lennon wordlessly pointed one arm directly at a small bar set-up in the back corner of the room, and Paul retrieved a bottle, carrying three tumblers between the fingers of one hand and knowing it would drive Mimi to distraction to see it. Fingers inside drinking glasses. A common boy, with a commoner’s habits.

Aye, he was that. And he was willfully working to disrupt John’s Auntie M – knock her completely off her game for as long as he could.

Sitting once more, he managed to flick a lighter under Mimi’s nose as she brought a cigarette forward -- startling her all over again -- before lighting a ciggie of his own, and then John’s. He broke open the bottle and poured out three liberal portions.

“That’s entirely too much –” Mimi began.

“That’s grand, lad, just right.” John finished.  

Paul slid one glass before John. “Aye, slap that across your chest, son, and let it bleed you.” Leaning toward Mimi, he lowered his tone, looking squarely into her eyes as he placed the tumbler into her hand. “There, now. Have it Missus. Put a good night’s rest between you and the morrow. It’ll be hard enough.”

Mimi stared at Paul as though she had never seen him before, as though he were some strange being blown in from a place beyond all of her certainties. She looked down at the drink, his hand still around hers – the common boy, so gentle in his touch but so decidedly… _decided_  in his look. She searched his face, finding nothing of resentment in those familiar, absurd eyes, and yet there was something hard behind them that she’d never noticed before. And then she recognized the expression as one she’d viewed so often in her own mirror – the look that said self-control was primary, that self-possession must rise within one before anything else may be controlled and managed. The look that expects others to behave as they should, and to be accountable for their flaws.

Mimi felt herself tremble and gasped as unaccustomed tears sprang up under Paul's gaze. She turned away from him, her hand shaking as she raised the cigarette to her lips.

John had already gulped deeply of the whiskey and was coughing his way past the sting. Paul’s lips gave a minute tug upward at the reassuring notion that Lennon wasn’t yet the manly drinker he thought himself. Nor was Paul, if he was honest.

“A word first, John, aye?” Paul lifted his glass and looked at it as though considering for one moment the light reflecting off the liquid amber. “Let us drink to Julia,” he pronounced, imagining words that might have been said for his own mother, “gone to us now, but for the light of memory, thus may she burn ever bright within us.”

“Mum,” John whispered, raising his glass.

“Julia,” Mimi mouthed, her voice unequal to speech, her glass nevertheless raised.

They drank together in a silence made gravely eloquent by the ticking of a clock that carried through the room amid the quiet, like a solemn reminder that the moment was marked, but already passing, as was the moment right ahead, which was already slipping by – there it went! A rhythmic cue that our tomorrows are mere previews to what becomes yesterday, til the future is all used up, and everyone is gone, and gone too soon is memory, too.

John raised his glass again, his voice cracking, “To Uncle George."

“Uncle George,” Paul echoed, and Mimi went stock-still at the mention of her husband's name. After a beat she exhaled slowly, using the measured release of her breath to comport herself before managing a small, stiff nod, and they drank.

And then an unexpected and deep sigh emerged from Paul's direction, seeming to crash in against the steady ticking of the clock as he raised his glass one more time.

“To Mary McCartney,” he offered. “Our dead mums.”

And he drank alone as John fell apart, breaking into an agonized sob and sliding his way toward Mimi in her chair. He sat curled at her feet, his head in her lap, bowed over in sorrow and crying as though his shattered heart could only tumble and tumble down into some dark eternity beyond anyone's reach. Mimi lay one hand on John’s hair, her fingers gently caressing him as her head dropped forward to press a kiss there. She could feel Paul’s intense gaze upon them both, and when she looked he was standing back a bit, almost in the shadows, as though having orchestrated this scene he now needed some distance in order to give it his fullest witness.

Their eyes locked. Paul raised his glass once more, knocking back the rest of the whiskey without a blink.

Mimi raised her glass in mute salute, and emptied hers as well.

“ _There_ you are, Mimi,” he said in a soft voice of discovery, as though she’d just shown herself to him for the very first time, a new arrival, so to speak. “And there you’ll stay,” he added.

And for the next hour, Mimi listened to her nephew’s tears, and his woebegone moans of loss, and his curses spewed toward heaven, and she let them come, accepting them with the silence that implied consent, the silence that said that for once Mimi could find nothing to correct in her nephew -- that he was getting it right -- and John cried and cried, all over her.

From the corner of her eye, she could see Paul moving back and forth as he cleared the table, and there she stayed, indeed, unable to do anything, direct anything, control anything. All she could do was bear her nephew in his helpless collapse. She allowed his sniffles into her meticulous skirt without fuss, and John’s tears seemed endless.

From what felt like a great, far distance, she heard water splashing and the clink of fine china being washed by calloused hands and then carefully set aside to dry, nothing crashed or cracked, or chinked. Meanwhile her nephew shuddered and heaved under Mimi’s consoling strokes and skimming fingers until she thought his body would crumble from the incessant shiver, from the unbearable weight of his desolation, and she and John both wept and wept.

When Paul finally emerged from the kitchen he went directly to his friend, now quietly wrecked and sitting numbly beside Mimi’s chair. Sparing no look for Mimi, he laid a hand on his shoulder. “Come ahead, John, love. Time to sleep.” John, his sorrow spent to stillness, gave no reaction. He allowed himself to be drawn up to a stand and directed toward the staircase, but then he held back a moment, returning to Mimi who was holding her head in one hand, eyes closed, her ramrod posture slightly slumped in uncharacteristic surrender. John leaned in and kissed the top of her head, laying a hand upon her shoulder for an instant, and then heading up the stairs, with Paul following.

“Young man,” Mimi choked out.

The boy stopped in his tracks and looked her way, his gaze dark but still direct and shining, as visible in the shadows as was Mimi’s own struggle with herself in the moment.

“Thank you,” she said.

Paul licked his lips, but declined to speak. He permitted himself a very Mimi-like nod, short and stiff, and disappeared up the staircase, to John.    


	3. Into the Great Wide Empty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re fussing over me like an old granny,” John teased, trying to lighten the mood.
> 
> “Well, if you can’t fuss over your best mate on a day like this, then when can you? And you’re worth the fussing, John, love.”
> 
> Worth the fussing.
> 
> No one had ever said anything like that to John. Ever. The words were surprisingly difficult to hear, and an even harder concept to grasp. Unimaginable, in fact. John Lennon: worth the fussing.

When Paul finally made it upstairs, John was already sprawled out on his bed, fully clothed and staring blankly at the ceiling. Paul leaned against the doorjamb, hands in his pockets, surveying the day’s wreckage on him. Having been fully submerged in his grief, John looked almost peaceful, now, Paul thought, like a ship that has sunk to a silty bottom and would wait in passivity – for perhaps years – to be raised or to be forgotten.

Passivity and John just didn’t seem to belong together in Paul's mind, so it was time to shake him up a bit.

“ _Oi_ , you gonna sleep in your clothes, then, son?”

John didn’t turn his head. “Probably.”

“Nah, take ‘em off,” Paul said. He pulled John into a sitting position. “Go wash up, and I’ll find your pajamas.”

“Oh, fuck off, fuck off, lad,” John said, wrenching himself out of Paul’s grasp. “Fuck it all. Fuck pajamas. What the fuck does it matter?”

“Well, for one thing, you’ve had your arse on the ground all day, haven’t you,” Paul answered mildly. “If I’m sharin’ your bed, I don’t want to sleep in all your dirt.”

“Sleep on the fuckin’ floor, then. Or go home.”

“That what you want?” Paul shrugged and pretended to consider. “Well, I would half and again be more comfortable at home, I admit, but I’m a bit done-in for drainpipe climbing and for sure my da’s locked the door by now. The floor will do me.”

“No, goddammit, you’re not sleepin’ on the bleedin’ floor after all you’ve done, today.”

“T’was nothing, you know,” Paul said shortly, “was glad to help. But if I’m not sleepin’ on the floor then pajamas it is for you, love, because I’ll be sleepin’ in my drawers, and I’ll have no truck with your sweaty thighs.” He yawned hugely. “And if you don’t need the loo, I do.”

John watched him leave and fell back on his bed, shaking his head and muttering about Paul’s damned tiresome habit of telling him what to do. And expecting him to do it, too, like an uppity nanny. No, fuck it. Paul was his best mate, and all, and – to be fair – he'd been magnificent tonight in how he’d handled Mimi, but he wasn’t going to lead John Lennon about by the nose, no sir. Not now, not ever.

John was tired. He had a headache. And what the fuck did it matter what he did, anyway, because he knew he wouldn’t sleep. He thought there was a good chance he might never sleep again.

Paul returned carrying a flannel and a small basin of water. Clearly The McCartney's seizure and occupation of Mimi’s household was absolute and included her bathroom cabinets. He eyed John’s defiant position on the bed, legs crossed, arms behind his head, and said “Good job on the pajamas, ass,” as he closed the door and sat down next to him, pushing John aside a bit with his hips.

“It’s a fuckin’ protest. You’re not my foreman,” John said, to Paul’s hidden delight. John in protest was John alive and kicking and undefeated. “And what’s that, now?”

“Cold water compress.”

“Oh, away with that! It’s not a fainting couch, here, and I’m not some bird with a case of the vapors who needs a dripping cotton on her head.”

“Not your head,” Paul said patiently as he wrung out the sopping fabric. “Your eyes. They’re swollen up pretty bad. Look like you’ve gone sparring with a heavyweight.”

“So?”

“So, by morning you’ll not be able to open them, and Mimi doesn’t need to look at all the evidence of your tears when tomorrow will be hard enough for the both of you.” Very gently, Paul laid the compress over John’s eyes, and saw him shiver a little before he visibly relaxed. Paul switched off the lamp, worried that it might be too bright for tender eyes, and the room was cast into soft shadows by the nightlight, always-present, because John hated to sleep in the dark.

“It feels good,” John admitted with a soft groan.

“Aye, it does, the cold, and all,” Paul answered, as if he knew.

“What about tomorrow?” John asked.

“ _’Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day…_ ’” Paul recited, using his fingertips to better center the flannel and catch a drip before it traveled to John’s neck.

“Yes, teacher’s darling, you get an award.” John smirked. “But why will it be hard? You said it to Mimi, too, before.”

Paul didn’t answer right away because he couldn’t; he wasn’t sure what would happen next day, what customs might be observed, but he could imagine them. “Sure, people will be coming in and out to condole, won’t they? Bringin’ food and flowers and all. Another reason you want that swelling down. Can’t have the whole neighborhood seeing you lookin’ daffy.” He sat back, his eyes with a faraway look to them. “I guess they’ll come, and probably Mimi will go to Bobby to make, you know, arrangements.”

“So, like with Uncle George.”

 “Yeah, but a bit different, too, because of the horror of it all. People are nosy, you know. They might be sincere, but they also want details. They want your story for their entertainment." Paul shook his head slightly. "It's cynical to say, but people are like that. Then too, you might be asked to help with Julia's girls, and all. They’re probably all outside of themselves, now.”

“God, yeah,” John murmured. He hadn't even thought of his step-sisters.

“And tomorrow will be hard,” Paul said as he gazed at nothing, “because it will be the first day of the great empty. Of a whole new kind of empty, and it will last forever, and I’m not sure it can ever be really filled in again. First real day without your mum, and for the rest of your life.” He winced at his own words and gulped as he felt his throat tighten. “Sorry. That was too raw, sorry, John. But it’s only the truth I’m tellin’ you.”

He had never been so happy to not see his best mate's eyes than at that moment.

“Fuck you, Macca.” John whispered, unable to say more.

“Yeah,” Paul sighed, staring at nothing. “Fuck me.”

John felt the mattress jostle. He didn’t need to see Paul to know he was closing in on himself, drawing up his legs to his chest and wrapping his arms tight around his own shoulders, as though he was holding himself together by becoming a little ball of self-protection and comfort. Paul did that, sometimes. Sometimes a lot. The silence between them was almost oppressive and full of the very "empty" he had mentioned --  of the yawning void that seemed all too eager to become filled with a thick sense of isolation, and of fear and regret, _and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…_

“It was a good toast, you made, Paul.” John said, to beat it back. “Did you hear it at your mum’s?”

Instead of answering, Paul reached over and removed the compress, busying himself as he returned it to the basin, swirled it and then wrung it out. “Still ugly, those bags,” he nodded at John. “We’ll do it some more.”  

Interesting, John thought. Ask a question and get activity instead of an answer. As he blinked his eyes into focus, John sought out Paul's face and understood why. The lad’s whole expression was one of naked desolation, his brow pulled down, those eyes sending out a look of powerful misery, like a searchlight beaconing out into the ocean’s vast and lonely darkness.

It was a look John thought he might expect to find in his own reflection, but never on Paul. In the year they’d known each other and become so close, John had gotten acquainted with capable Paul, happy-go-lucky Paul, optimistic Paul, Paul the perfectionist, or the teacher, or the dreamer – all variations on the same steady theme he projected day-by-day. Now he was making the acquaintance of suffering Paul, who was unnerving as hell to behold. John had never seen anguish on the lad, and now it was rolling off of him like a thick, suffocating fog -- unbearable to witness.

He was grateful to close his eyes as Paul reapplied the compress very lightly – glad to see no more of that.

“A few more times and you’ll be right,” Paul said, his voice still tight and quiet.

“You’re fussing over me like an old granny,” John teased, trying to lighten the mood.

“Well, if you can’t fuss over your best mate on a day like this, then when can you? And you’re worth the fussing, John, love.”

 _Worth the fussing_.

No one had ever said anything like that to John. Ever. The words were surprisingly difficult to hear, and an even harder concept to grasp. Unimaginable, in fact. John Lennon: _worth the fussing_.

He could feel his eyes stinging, wanting to set the waterworks in motion again, and fought back that urge. He couldn't possibly shed another tear, and undo all of Paul's kind work.

“Paul?” he asked in the stillness, when he could speak.

“Aye?”

“How did you learn to do this? Who did this for you, when your mum passed, and the tears left you wrecked?”

He didn’t think it could be possible, but the silence in the room deepened. He could feel Paul leaning over him, making no answer beyond a deep sigh, and then going utterly still.

“Macca?”

No answer. The tension all around John felt thick and black, and Paul was so motionless he seemed entirely absent.

“Macca…I can hear you not breathing.” John reached out blindly until his hand felt Paul’s arm, and then found his rib cage. He kept going until he found the slightly concave space just above Paul’s heart. “Breathe, lad. Your chest’s not even moving.”

A sound, indecipherable and throaty emerged as Paul breathed in, but it was an incomplete breath, stopped halfway through, as though he daren’t bring it down.

“Alright, Paul?”

Another sound, another half-breath as Paul struggled, and John couldn’t discern whether his mate was trying to get his words out or hold them in. There was a war going on mere inches away from him, a battle between a body and a mind, with a spirit all at odds with itself, too. He could feel Paul’s heart beating fast and hard beneath his palm, it’s rhythm all over the place.

And another breath got stalled.

Paul was trembling.

“Hmmhuhm…my..mmm” The words weren’t coming -- they couldn’t come, could they, because Paul couldn’t bring himself to open his mouth. A shaky burst of air managed to deliver only another “mhemm.” Paul’s heart was pounding so wildly that John had to force himself not to throw off the compress just to make eye contact with him -- to steady him, somehow. A voice in his head told him not to do it, that Paul in this moment like a penitent deeply in need of a screen, a buffer, a barrier of some sort, before he could make his confession.

“Macca… _tell me_?”

“I…” John heard a gulp, another shaky sigh, and then a groan that seemed to arise out of Paul like a sneaking tremblor, and Paul let his words ride on it. “I never…I hadn’t. I  _was_ wrecked...but hadn’t. I…couldn't…then you…did.”

The whole mattress seemed to be shaking as Paul battled out his declaration and John decided, finally, to ignore that inner voice. He lifted off the compress only to feel Paul press it quickly back into place.

No, alright, he really didn’t want to be looked at, then.

“It’s just…I never showed them any tears…never cried before another’s eyes, John…not til today…with you. Couldn’t, you know.” The admission torn from him, Paul finally, fully exhaled, nearly collapsing from the hollowing he felt within.

“That's alright, Paul,” John whispered, stroking light fingertips over Paul’s heart. “It’s okay…can I take this thing off, yet?”

“No.” Paul was blunt. “Can’t look at you.”

It occurred to John how unnatural it was for Paul to give explicit details to anyone about anything that went on in his personal life, which was ironic because Paul was so detail-driven. He could instantly pinpoint a musical intricacy left unexplored and go on and on about it until you wanted to tear your hair out, and then his.

But of his private life he was deliberately vague, and of his mother’s death, Paul shared nothing at all. To give out any information beyond the fact of Mary McCartney’s demise was far outside of his inclinations. You could glean more, sometimes, by what he wouldn’t say than by what he would. Personal specifics went unshared, and after glimpsing Paul’s expression earlier, John realized there must be monstrous pain behind all that silence.

" _People are nosy,_ " Paul had said. " _They might be sincere, but they also want details. They want your story for their entertainment._ " For Paul to give John even a morsel of what Mary’s death was for him had involved a genuine interior battle. John had seen it – had felt it with his own hand and heart – and he knew he had to respect that. He even felt a little privileged to know that Paul trusted him, had felt him _worth the fussing_ , worth the effort it was taking to confide any part of it to him. If he was truly fussworthy, then John intended to be trustworthy in return. 

“Can’t look at me, why, Macca?" He asked softly. "Because you didn’t blubber in your auntie’s skirts like the almighty Lennon? No shame there, son.”

“No, it’s not…” Paul surprised him by lifting the flannel. “I’m not cryin’ now, either, am I? It’s just…you can’t understand.”

“Try me.”

Paul turned to the basin again, once more refreshing the strip of cloth, and wringing it out. Before he again blinded John he looked at him squarely. “My da, you know…he…he thought he was doing right by me and Mike. I know that. But you see…” Paul covered John’s eyes once more with that blasted compress, so no, he didn’t see, but he understood that he oughtn’t, for Paul’s sake.

“My da sent us away, to his brother’s, my auntie’s place. We didn’t…we didn’t want to go. We never saw her again after our one time to the hospital, when she was so pale and weak, and there was blood on the sheets…blood on her fuckin’ sheets and they let her lay in that, and nobody said ‘change the fuckin’ bedding, she’s a sister! Treat her like a fuckin’ duchess because that’s how she’d treat any of you!’ No one said it. I wish I had.”

John reached out again, found Paul’s hand and took it into his own.

“Bastards,” he whispered. “I’m sorry, Macca.”

“Mmem,” that choked angry sound.

Paul was struggling again, biting down on himself to control his anger. “We never…Da sent us away – thought we were too young, didn’t want us to…I guess he thought it would, make us too sad. But _she was our mum_ , our fuckin’… And we weren’t there. Had no part in the waking, weren’t at the funeral, or the grave. It felt like…” Paul bent over double, as though his belly were aflame, his forehead just touching lightly to John’s shirt.

“It felt like _the empty_. All empty. Because we hadn’t been witness to anyone’s great loss of her, you see? We hadn’t had a chance to hear her bein’ remembered, or toasted, or keened over, as she deserved to be.”

 _Toasted_. As Paul had done for Julia, downstairs. Julia and his own mother, Mary.

John suddenly understood all of Paul's controlling actions of this evening. He'd been making sure John got what he needed as he faced the loss of Julia. By Paul's lights, to give John's grief what his own had been denied was to save him from the great empty, if he possibly could.

Now that he was talking, John almost wished Paul would stop. It felt too heavy, listening to him choke out words that didn’t want to come, that wanted to stay blocked behind a lump in the throat and a closed-off channel of the heart that had been so suddenly sprung open. It was too much to hear the almost dangerous-sounding depth of Paul’s seething-quiet fury. Too much. All he could do was squeeze his partner’s hand and hold on for the drop and the drop down into the empty, and then help Paul rise, if he could.

“She was gone, and there was barely a trace of her when we got back home, because Da couldn’t bear it, he was too… He sent us away -- two fuckin' months, we were away -- and we had no part of his grief, weren’t allowed to share his…and we didn’t dare show our own. It was like we just skated around it all. As though mum’s dyin’ was a hole in a lake at winter, and we were moving all around her, pretending everything was solid, even as the ice was cracking and threatening to sink us all.”

Paul’s words began to pour out in a torrent, as though a dam had been broken. “Da…you know what he’s like, John. He’s a good man, aye, but…you _just keep going_ , you know? You keep the chin up and do the dishes and weed the garden and remember your priorities and you don’t look back because there’s nothin’ to be done, and we were boys, you know, not girls, who could be expected to weep and grieve. Northern men… they just keep going, and let the women cut the flowers and weed the graves. And so I did. Kept goin’. And after all the fuckin’ stupid ways I hurt my mum as she lived, there was nothing I could offer her memory, not even the tears. Couldn’t cry before Da, couldn’t be weak. Couldn’t risk him seein’ it.”

His voice lowered, then, as if he were telling a great secret. “And then, you know…the drinkin’…that happened for a bit…and the manhandlin’ you know…got tossed about for a while during that…carried a few black eyes to school and all.”

“He struck you?”

Silence.

“Macca...I never knew. Couldn't have guessed…” John’s words faded into the air.

“He got better,” Paul rushed to say. “It didn’t last long, the trouble with the drink, but whilst it did…”

“It was bad?”

Paul made that garbled noise again, and then released a sigh from his depths. “Aye. Bad.”

John sat up, tossing the compress into the basin and putting an arm around Paul’s shoulder as he leaned into his forehead speaking with a tenderness he wouldn’t have ever guessed he possessed. “I’m so sorry, love. So sorry. None of that should have happened. It’s all rotten. You’re a good lad and there’s nothing right about any of that.”

“I’ve never seen Mum’s grave,” Paul said, chewing on a fingertip. “She’s only at Yew Tree, you know, but I’ve never gone.” He gave a shrug.

“Well,” John said helplessly. “We should go, you and me. We can take Mike if you want.”

He felt Paul shake his head. “T’is pointless. There’s no marker, nothing to speak to beyond the grass. Da said the cost was too dear. The empty is the empty.”

“Paul, _look at me_.” John’s voice was firm. With his fingertips he forced his friend’s head up, and then peered at him intently until Paul lifted his gaze so that eye contact – and the intense connection it always ignited between them -- was finally established. “We should _go_.”

Their gazes held. John’s almond-shaped eyes, still heavy from tears but greatly improved thanks to Paul’s ministrations, wouldn’t let go of Paul’s agonized look until the other boy finally nodded, too exhausted to resist. “Alright. Someday. But first let’s get through what’s before us, yeah? All the waking and such.”

“Are you sure you want that, Paul? To be around all that, I mean,” John asked. “I don’t want to give you more hurt. You don’t have to -”

“I want to,” Paul cut him off. “For you. And for Julia. And maybe for my mum, somehow, you know?”

“Aye, I know. You're a good lad.” John repeated as he nodded his head and rose to begin undressing for bed. “Wait,” he said, sharply, throwing his shirt at Paul with a sly grin, “What about Mimi? Even for her?”

“Sure. If she doesn’t throw me out on my arse in the morning.” Paul managed to toss back the shirt. He picked up John’s guitar, flipped it and began to pick out a random melody.

“I don’t think she’d dare,” John said. “She doesn’t know what you’re gonna do next.”

“Aye, I might come back and commit a luncheon.”

“An assault on her herb garden.” John chuckled. "Or scrub the loo. She'd be mortified."

“Oh, Mimi, what he gonna do,” Paul sang softly, “What he gonna do when he come on by. The Macca gonna come in on the sly, come in on the sly oh, by-and-by. Gonna make some eggs and then he'll cry ‘well, there you are, Mimi’ let the jelly fly…”

John chuckled. “Hey, that’s good. I could see Little Richard singing that.”

Paul stopped. “I could too. I guess it would be wrong to scream out Mimi’s name tonight, yeah?”

“Oh, Christ, she’ll think yer a banshee.” And this time Paul even laughed. He continued picking at the strings, discretely watching John as he threw his jeans into a corner. “Pajamas, son,” he said.

“Can’t be arsed,” John replied, turning down the covers and getting into bed. “Too tired. Come on, Paul, get in. You looked half gone your own self.”

“What, my sheep eyes all bleary, are they?”

“Just come to bed.”

“Alright, just let me…” Paul’s voice faded as he rang out a chord progression and sang again, “There you are, Mimi, with McCartney in your head…There you are, Johnny, with McCartney in your bed.”

John exploded in laughter. “Aw, ya fuckin' daft queer, you!”

Paul set the guitar to rest against John’s desk and stripped down to his skivvies, slipping into the cramped bed beside him. “Look,” he said, as they went through a familiar routine of figuring out where arms and legs needed to go if they were ever to get to sleep. “I’m going to be headin’ home in the morning. You know, to get my gear, toothbrush, better clothes, and all. Wanna come with? Stretch yer legs before the day gets going?”

“I dunno,” John said, “Macca, let me get against the wall and you can put your big head on a bit of the pillow. Not sure about goin’ with ya.”

“Aye, praps you shouldn’t leave Mimi.”

“Praps I shouldn’t see Jim McCartney anytime soon. Not feelin’ too friendly at him, just now.”

“Aw...And you were such mates, before!”

“Sod off, tosser. And sleep tight.”

“Goodnight, Johnny,” Paul said, shimmying himself more deeply into the mattress.

John was just beginning to drift into sleep when he felt Paul turn to face him. “John, love,” he sussed.

Opening his eyes, John marveled, as he always did, at how Paul’s dark eyes seemed to capture light and radiate it back, even in the dim of midnight. You could read a book by him, if he wouldn’t blink. Just now, they looked anxious. “What, Macca?”

“You asked me today how to get over it. I’m sorry. I really don’t know the answer.”

“S’okay, that. I didn’t expect you to. We’ll just have to figure it out. Help each other, like. We’re partners. And we’re geniuses. We’ll figure it out.”

Paul nodded, his eyes intensely studying John’s face. “Yeah. Alright. Do you think you can sleep?”

“Not likely, if you’re going to gas away all night,” John smiled. “Is that the plan, make me too tired to worry about anything?”

“No, I’ll be good.”

“Well turn your arse around then, Macca. I can’t sleep by the light of those sheep peepers of yours.” Paul turned, and felt John pull him against his chest, his hand dangling lightly about Paul's waist. It felt comfortable, and both boys, exhausted beyond reason, began to relax and drift.

“Macca,” John drawled sleepily after a minute, “You slumberin’ yet?”

“Almost…” Paul breathed, “whaddwant?”

John drew the drowsy boy more closely to him. “Only, I think I disagree…”

“Okay…” Paul was nearly gone.

“You’re wrong that no one is to blame, love,” John whispered. “It’s lovely you think it, but it’s wrong.”

“Mmney?” Paul mumbled.

“Everyone is to blame, in the end, I think. Some more than others, but we all get a piece of it. We all carrying some shite to take up to God after all.”

Paul snuffled, tugging John’s hand up to his chest, and clinging to it.

“Goodnight, Paul,” John whispered.

Holding his position, willing the night to stay precisely as it was in this moment, John watched the disobedient moon travel past his window till there were only stars. He imagined Julia and Mary McCartney flying somewhere amid them in the nighttime blueness and looking down on their grieving sons, until sleep finally came.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	4. Fence me in, Baby...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An inquest delays Julia's funeral, but Paul is taking his promises to John as seriously as he takes his responsibility toward his brother and father and that stirs John's instinctive jealousy:
> 
> “Can’t yer father be a parent for a few days? Your brother’s not an infant, you know.”
> 
> “No, nor are you,” Paul answered matching John’s heat. “I can’t help it if I care about both of you and want to do right by you'se.” 
> 
> “Oh, don’t play a put-upon martyr for me, Macca.”
> 
> “I’m not playin’ anything, John, and I’d say the same to you. I ain’t victimizing you, so lay your vicious tongue to rest, now. This isn’t a head game, it’s just the way life is, sometimes.” He squeezed his partner’s arm tighter, drawing him closer as he softened his tone. “You know I’m all-in on you, love, and I’ll do anything for you, as you would for me. But yours is not the only life I’m answerable to – that I choose to be answerable to – not right now.”
> 
> “Aye,” Lennon seethed but didn’t move away. His bitter tone dropped a degree of its intensity. “As though you can choose to love who’s been thrust upon you.” He shook his head and looked away. “And as though old Jim McCartney deserves any bit of you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really appreciating all of the kind comments on this story, which was originally just the first chapter until y'all encouraged me on. I'd planned on Chapter 4 heading right into Julia's waking, but then Paul and Mimi were having a moment, and I didn't want to interrupt them, and then Paul and John got into a bit of a spat that turned into Paul's defending his honest decision to choose to keep loving people, even when they've hurt him ("Everyone I love, I’ve chosen to love 'em. Entirely my choice...") and telling John why whatever forgiveness they give or refuse to others may come back to them. It just seemed like JohnandPaul were foreshadowing JohnandPaul, so I got out of the way. As the wake is dramatic it would have made the chapter ridiculously long, so it will be coming up next. The funeral will be a fairly short chapter. thanks again for reading!

**Wednesday, July 16, 1958**  

 

_God, his eyes were burning!_

Through the windowpane, the morning’s sunlight had come creeping along John’s bed in steady increments, up along his legs, then to his shoulder, its silent movement impacting him not at all until a sliver of brightness fell over his sleeping eyes. Neither of them had thought to close the curtains before sleep last night, and now John realized the cost of cathartic weeping. Even the morning’s weak light seemed to singe his tender peepers, closed lids and all. He turned his head into the pillow to escape the menace of a mid-morning sun and groaned.

Beyond the pain, he was aware of feeling absence and loss – and of a chilliness all around him, and inside of him, too.

Part of it was practical physics. Paul was gone, and since the lad seemed to produce 10,000 British Thermal Units even in the stillness of sleep, John’s natural and organic bed-warmer was now denied him while the dewy morning, come after a night of teeming rain, demanded additional heat. He reached over blindly, his hand searching the spot where Paul had lain, hoping to catch hold of some remaining warmth, but no, there was only John’s own chill.

Paul had been gone a while, then, the responsible, orderly bastard – off to get his toothbrush and such, like the fretful White Rabbit he could be sometimes -- always thinking about what must be done, or how late the day was getting.

He wished his partner had put aside his schedule and considered John’s own need for this morning -- had stuck around until now. Would have been nice to have awoken to those ridiculous doe-eyes and a friendly face but – to be fair – Paul had a restless way about him and was always up early. Can’t blame a lad for his habits.

Still, it occurred to John that, while he had more room to sprawl about in his own small bed, he was somehow less relaxed than he had been – aware that he would prefer to be a little uncomfortable with Paul beside him than to enjoy the unchecked ability to stretch and spread out to the four corners without him.

What a strange thought that was, to prefer limitation over expansiveness, to miss confinement over absolute freedom. He pondered that and recalled reading about a telegram Humphrey Bogart had once sent to that bird he married, what was her name again? Bacall. Right, Lauren Bacall. “ _Please fence me in, Baby”_ , the biggest toughguy in movies had written to her, “ _The world's too big out here, and I don't like it without you.”_

Every tough guy meets his downfall, John supposed, and so often that fall came in the form of a pretty face with a hidden spine of granite, someone who will take no shit but deal plenty back -- who can bring a bloke to his knees and leave him casting about for something – a hedge, a leash, enough rope for an endless tug-of-war, even – if it would mean staying connected, _staying put together_ , or even creating a nation of two if that’s what it took to make him feel like he's found his place in the world, a lasting safe haven.  

An image of Julia arose unbidden from John’s subconscious, bringing him back to that feeling of loss, of chilly absence that he’d awoken with.

Julia, who had never fenced him in, offered no leash, no lasting safe haven

Julia who had launched him like a pull-top -- sent him spinning off to land wherever he would, with Mimi or the next auntie, or the next, until he would fall helpless again to Mendips, needing Mimi’s surface stability to get himself back to rights, even as he could not help resenting her for it.

Julia who, when they had finally found each other a few years ago, had seemed to understand John better than most.

Julia, who had encouraged him to dream.

Julia, who had permitted the unbridled, unbroken John Lennon to experiment with being fenced in where she was, along with Bobby and the girls, before…

It all came crashing back at him – the memory of  sitting in Julia’s house in uncomfortable silence with Bobby, knowing that it wasn’t working out, that Julia’s man didn’t want him there, that really…there was no place for him with them. And then the cop at the door, and the horrible news, and the rush to hospital.

And the horrible news. And the horrible news, and the horrible news.

Jesus. Julia. _Mum_.

And then Paul. _“I’ve found you, John, love.”_ Leading him back to Mimi, once more.

Where the hell was Paul?

John felt the rising sting of new tears and shook them off because his eyes felt like they were about to bleed. Had he feckin’ rubbed sand in them last night?

Finally allowing his lids to flutter open, he sat up, cupping his vision against the sunlight. As he slowly allowed the light in, his focus landed on the basin and flannel from the night before, now resting on his nightstand with a note. He grasped about until he found his glasses and discovered he still needed to blink a few times – his eyes were so scratchy – until he could read the bare lines written in Paul's neat hand.

_John,_

_Fresh water, here. Use it again, do. Back soon, P_  

Paul was unbearable John thought with a smirk, one that would have turned into a smile if only the day could allow it. Still ordering him about even from a distance. But with a sigh, and because the bossy little bastard was right, he did Paul's bidding, wringing out the cloth and pressing it to his eyes, groaning in relief as the cool water soothed his tortured tissue, and bathed his tear-swollen lids. 

***

He was just finishing a light breakfast with Mimi fluttering around him, pouring out his cornflakes and tea and even his milk as though she needed to reassert her household dominance after Paul’s surprise take-over of the previous evening. In ten years, John knew, he’d be retelling the story of it, of Mimi’s utterly confounded look as Paul ordered her about the place. It would be one of those “great stories” that people share over a few pints, someday. But not yet. Just now, it all felt too fresh, too new, and to mock Mimi today would be too cruel, even for John. Not today, he thought, as he heard Paul knock at the front door and then simply stroll in as if he owned the place. 

The lad was carrying his guitar case, a short duffle bag, and a bouquet of flowers wrapped in newspaper. John felt completely justified in thinking him a sight for his own truly sore eyes.

Throwing  a warm wink in his friend's direction, Paul put down everything but the flowers and went directly to Mimi, who was working at the sink and hadn’t spared him a glance. 

“Good morning, Mimi,” Paul greeted her in a gentle voice. “I hope you’re well, today. As well as can be expected, I mean.” 

“Good morning, Paul,” she answered, barely turning her head. 

“My da’s prize peonies were looking especially fine this morning,” he said, “I thought you might like a few.” He just touched her shoulder with a finger and Mimi turned, giving him a startled glance until her eyes fell on the bright spray of full, pink blossoms he was presenting. Her eyes softened.

"Why, these…are lovely.” 

They really were. Jim McCartney was an avid gardener whose award-winning displays owed more than a little thanks to his regularly sending Paul and Mike out into the street with shovels and buckets to collect horse droppings. “It’s the best fertilizer,” he would say of the pungent stuff, “brings the peonies up a treat.” 

Considering how truly breathtaking the flowers were -- and the positive effect they were having on Mimi -- Paul found he didn’t mind the effort, after all. That such a sweet scent could arise from generous applications of horseshit seemed like a working metaphor for life and the way of the world, to Paul, but he wisely refrained from sharing that thought with Mimi. John would appreciate it later, though. 

“Your father _grew_ them, you say?” Mimi asked, as though trying to square a working-class garden with so much delicate beauty. 

“Aye, and you’ll want to shake them a little over the sink, you know, and give them a sprinkle, to make sure all the wee ants are let out. They go in lookin’ for the sweetness.” Even as he was giving the advice, Paul had taken the bouquet back from Mimi and was demonstrating what he meant, jostling the blossoms gently, turning on the faucet and dribbling a slight stream of water over them. 

Mimi’s eyes followed Paul in fascination as the young man reached up and pulled a short, square vase from a shelf. “And, you like flowers, do you?” She asked. The surprise in her voice suggested that a disorientation similar to last night's was beginning to creep in on her.  

“I love ‘em,” Paul answered, rinsing the vase and filling it. “Always have.” 

“Aye, when I first met him, Mimi, he was wearing one in his jacket, even.” John heckled. 

“That was a carnation,” Paul corrected over his shoulder. “Much more humble thing than a peony, but a stronger boutonnière, wouldn’t you say, Mimi?” 

Mimi choked out an amazed sounding, “Why, yes. I would say so.” 

“Of course. Any sensible person would.” Paul added a spoonful of sugar into the vase, stirring the water until it was clear. “That’ll make ‘em last longer. Peonies are just sugar grown up in the sun, you know.” 

John slurped at his tea while rather amusedly watching Paul operate. Smooth little son of a bitch. Now, he was helping Mimi arrange the flower spray – or more accurately, he seemed to be permitting Mimi to help him -- and his dazzled aunt seemed completely unaware that she was falling, perhaps for the first time but fully, under a heavy barrage of McCharmly fire, a siege from which few could emerge whole and intact, and women almost never. 

The arrangement completed, Paul lifted the flowers to Mimi’s nose. “Take a whiff,” he ordered, smiling as she sniffed in their sweet scent with appreciation. He leaned close and inhaled deeply, himself. “I thought you’d like to have them in your parlour, for company.”

“Yes,” Mimi said, “They’ll be lovely there. These really are most impressive, Paul, as is your…knowledge of… well, please thank your father, for me.”

Paul gurgled in amusement, “Oh, if he knew I’d snipped these he’d have my guts for garters, you know. But they seem better-placed here, I think. Is there any more tea? I’ll help myself. Off you go and, you’ll find just the right spot for them, yeah?”

In stunned acquiescence, Mimi proceeded to do as she was told, holding the vase before her like a bridal bouquet as she processed out of the kitchen while John, almost unable to control himself, hid his face behind his hands, and willed his body not to shake with laughter. He peered through his fingers as he watched Paul take a teacup and saucer and sit across from him, contentedly pouring himself a cuppa.

“ _Brass balls_ , McCartney,” he said finally. “Solid brass. I'm surprised you don’t clank when you walk.” 

“What?” Paul asked, all wide-eyed innocence and indignation. “They’re lovely flowers!” 

“Oh, aye, they are. And combined with your spooky mind control tricks, they have the power to make Mimi – the formidable Mimi Smith of Mendips, no less, – do precisely as she’s told, when she is told to do it. Christ, Macca, I’m surprised you didn’t tell her which table to put them on.” 

“Oh, there’s only the one table that’d make sense for them, and she’ll figure it out,” Paul said with a twinkle before he sipped his tea and set about studying John, before him. “Alright then, you?” He asked softly. 

“Better now you’re here. That little production did a world of good for my soul, anyhow.” 

“Good,” Paul said, thinking that John’s smirk was doing a world of good for his own soul, yeah. 

Things seemed less good a short while later as Mimi learned -- and shared with the boys -- that Julia’s wake and funeral would be delayed for an official inquest which would take several days. “I expect it will create some complications,” Mimi added, foregoing unhappy details as she went to answer the doorbell and endure a growing number of visitors bearing provender and more questions than Mimi, or even John and Paul, thought seemly. _"They might be sincere,”_ John remembered Paul saying the night before, _“_ _but they also want details. They want your story for their entertainment._ _"_  

He decided that Macca’s cynical wisdom was making all the nosy detail-seeking by their neighbors both easier to take, and harder. Easier because it all seemed to fall into a trashable box called "Unfortunate Human Habits". Harder because human habits sometimes made John want to kick people 'til they bled.

“C’mon, mate,” Paul said after he’d stowed his stuff up in John’s room, “Let’s stretch a leg. Get you walked and aired.” 

“Christ, I’m not one of the royal corgi, needing to be handled, Macca.” 

“Nay, you’re a great wolfhound, ain’t ya? And you don’t want to be stuck amid all these biddies much longer or you'll be biting at them and howling, and generally fuckin' things up. Come ‘head then, ya mad barker.” 

With no wish to revisit the golf course and recall the previous day’s shared upsetments, and thinking it a bad time to walk through the graveyard of St. Pete’s where they’d often go for a smoke and a gab, Paul led John toward the more distant water's edge, where they both lit ciggies and watched the horizon simply for the sense of spacious expansiveness it gave. A reminder, or a promise, John thought, that life and the whole world was about more than the familiar doors and streets and fences – and pissant brutes and disappointments -- that no one was ever fully trapped unless they somehow wanted to be and didn’t look for help. 

_Please fence me in, baby…_

“I was thinkin’,” Paul said as he watched John stare. “I'm gonna have to leave you for a bit, John.”

He saw John’s face drop into a familiar mode of barely concealed, hairtrigger fury -- eyebrows furrowing, eyes narrowing, jaw jutting forward. “You said you’d stay, Macca,” John said between thin, tense lips. He pushed off from the seaport railing as though to take himself away. Paul, ready for it, grabbed his arm and held on tight. 

“I will and I mean to, mate, I do. I’ll be with you tonight and tomorrow, and then I’ll come back and be with you through Tuesday. I just -” 

“Don’t trouble yourself, McCartney, I know your little life is important. There’s peonies to shit on –” 

Paul rolled his eyes, unimpressed by that weak salvo. “No, will you listen you sodding arse? I’m sorry, but listen up. It’s only just Wednesday, and now Mimi says the funeral ain’t 'til Monday. I can’t leave m’brother Mike all to himself for so long. It’ll be on my conscience if I don’t turn up for him. Not to mention my da will bring God’s own vengeance on me if he’s stuck doing bangers and mash or a roast too many days in a row.” 

“Oh, Jim’s sure done a number on you, son, and your bleedin’ Catholic conscience,” John snarled. “Can’t yer father, you know, _be a parent_ for a few days? Without needing you for a nursemaid? I mean, your brother’s not an infant, Paul.”

“No, nor are you,” Paul answered matching John’s heat. “But I can’t help it if I care about both of you and want to do right by you'se.” 

“Oh, don’t play a put-upon martyr for me, now, Macca.” 

“I’m not playin’ anything, John, and I’d say the same to you. I ain’t victimizing you, so lay your vicious tongue to rest, now. This isn’t a head game, it’s just the way life is, sometimes.” He squeezed his partner’s arm tighter, drawing him closer as he softened his tone. “You know I’m all-in on you, love, and I’ll do anything for you, as you would for me. But yours is not the only life I’m answerable to – that I choose to be answerable to – not right now.”

“Aye,” Lennon seethed but didn’t move away. His bitter tone dropped a degree of its intensity. “As though you can choose to love who’s been thrust upon you, and all.” He shook his head and looked away. “And as though old Jim McCartney deserves any bit of you.” 

Paul studied John’s woebegone expression and thought his heart would break for how criminally long his friend had gone untutored in the truth about love, or even about forgiveness. “I _do_ choose it, though. Everyone I love, I’ve _chosen_ to love 'em. Entirely my choice,” Paul said, very gently, as though he were addressing an open wound -- which in fact, he thought, -- he _was_. He lowered his grip on John’s arm until he could grasp his hand, hidden between their bodies, and held on tight. 

“John...love fails sometimes. Or, maybe love doesn’t fail, but _we_ do. We all _fail at love_ , including in our families, and if we’re writin’ each other off for every bad move, every mistake... well, what mercy will anyone have for us when we’re standing’ in a cesspool of our own fuck-ups? _The quality of mercy is not strained..._ And you gotta give a little to get what you need, you know?” 

“Well, that’s McCartneyism in a nutshell, innit? Smooth over everything so it’s an easier road to travel. Here, Mimi, have some flowers.” 

“Aw, fuck ya, son,” Paul permitted himself to show just a little annoyance. “You’re not listenin’ and you need to hear this. Look at me, will you? John, _look_ at me.” 

With his free hand Paul took John’s chin and his head until they were eyeball-to-eyeball. He gave his partner a speaking look, one that warned against turning away. “John, don't you see? We’re none of us perfect in love. We’ll all let each other down, sometime -- even if we love each other a lot, even if we never mean to hurt one another, and you know I'm right. We wouldn’t be human otherwise. If our every moment were perfect in how we are with each other, there’d be no need for this stupid life, you know? We wouldn’t have to hear ‘work out your own salvation’ – which by the way makes _no_ fuckin’ sense to me – because we’d all be winged angels in heaven, wouldn’t we? Perfect in love.” Paul nudged John with a shoulder. “And what a fuckin’ nightmare that sounds, eh, bein' angels? No Little Richard, no Elvis. No Buddy Holly. Just bleedin’ harps day and night. Can’t even set up a proper twelve-bar blues riff on a harp, can you? C’mon, now…yeah, John? Aw, there’s the smile, then, a little bit?” 

John surrendered, rolling his eyes in a show of long-suffering and offering a reluctant smile of truce. “Christ, you’re a fucking menace, Macca, stop wheedlin’ on me. And no, it don't bear thinkin’ of -- a heaven without rock and roll.” He found his cigarettes and lit two, passing one to Paul. 

“Julia wouldn’t like it.” he said almost as an afterthought. “She’d be so bored.” 

Paul considered a moment. “Me mum _would_ like it, probably,” he said, wrinkling his nose and scratching at his head. “And bollocks, that means I’m gonna have to write something for harps, sometime. Harps and strings, and about God and all. Shite.” 

John Lennon’s face lit up in self-amusement as he assumed a newscaster’s tone. “Composer Paul McCartney, smoothest of the smooth operators, reveals his plan to work his will on God Almighty, himself. Details to follow.” 

“Ah, sod yerself, son,” Paul grinned. “Yer just jealous, is all.” 

“I am that,” John admitted freely. “Macca, if I had a tenth of your charm – an eighth, even – I’d be more than the world could handle. I’d be a tyrant worthy of a James Bond novel.” 

“What makes you think you aren’t that already, love?” Paul chucked John on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s crawl a pub or two. Cheap beer, my treat.” 

“Cheap brew! Oh, well, if you’re gonna fuss over a girl,” John batted his eyelashes and then did a spastic mug. 

 _“You’re worth the fussing, John, love…”_ reverberated through John’s memory, and he stopped. 

“You want better beer, you’ll need bigger tits, John, love,” Paul said, delighting in his own vulgarity as the tension that had been hanging so thick between them suddenly vanished. 

“I guess it won’t be so bad, you leavin’ after Thursday,” John said with a sense of magnanimity as they strolled pubward. “We’ll have two guitars, ciggies, the drink. And I can come over yours on Friday ‘til old Jim comes home.” 

“Bouncing from house to house like ragamuffin poets, you mean,” Paul smiled still holding John’s arm. 

“Aye, we’ll be Minstrels of Liverpool.” 

 _Fence me in, baby…_  

“Daft sod…” 

“Mind-fucking gigilo…” 

“Future tyrant…”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	5. Julia's Wake, John's Chaos: No One is to Blame...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “She’s cold, Macca. My mum’s’ cold as ice. I could feel it even in the air above her, even before I touched her hand!”
> 
> “I know, lad, it’s …”
> 
> “Why don’t they give her a blanket, then? She’s cold!” John’s voice began to raise, a tinge of panic in his tone.
> 
> “I’ll go ask Bobby for one,” Paul said gently. “Or I’ll ask Mimi.”
> 
> John grabbed at his hand. “No! Don’t leave me.”
> 
> “Okay, I won’t.” Paul fell back alongside John, lacing their fingers and giving a squeeze. “I’m still here, John.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's still some exposition to get into about the wake, but the chapter was getting long. I may clear it up as part of the funeral chapter, or I may just write something short, and leave the funeral to itself. So...one more chapter, two at most. Thank you for the kind and encouraging comments on this story. It's the longest fiction I've ever tried and I wouldn't have attempted it without you guys!

**Saturday into Sunday, July 20, 1958**

Nothing in Julia Lennon’s life came without complications and, as Mimi had hinted to the boys on Tuesday, the waking of John’s mother could never be as simple as laying out her body, bringing in food and flowers and spending an evening in grief and loving recollection. The inquest into her death had brought things to light about her life, and her choices, that provided the local gossips with tasty morsels slated for long digestion over fences and at the shops.

There was the breathtaking revelation that Julia had never actually divorced Alfie Lennon, which meant that she and Bobby Dykins were unmarried – “living in sin” as the wagging tongues would have it.

That meant, of course, that the couple had fraudulently misrepresented their legal status when applying for council housing – Bobby would not be permitted to remain in the house on Blomfield Road, and would be evicted directly after the funeral.

Most importantly, though, their marital status – or lack of one – meant that Julia and Bobby’s two daughters, Julia and Jacquie, were technically bastards -- “illegitimate” -- and therefore marked for shame amid the neighborhoods. Without a legal marriage, Bobby’s claim upon them was considered tenuous – _no saying who their father actually was, then, is there_ , went the harpies and the bureaucrats – but their mother was indisputably Julia, and so John’s stepsisters would be made wards of the state and probably, like John himself, placed into the legal custody of one of their aunties.

Paul heard some of this from Mimi – she had shared a little of the news with him and John as she dithered about the embarrassment Julia’s “bold and reckless choices” had brought upon the family, although she mostly kept the details to herself.

In a quiet moment on Saturday, though, when an exhausted John was kipping of an afternoon, Mimi did share one thing with Paul -- that the decision to wake Julia at Bobby’s house was done largely to shield her nephew.

“We could never do it here,” she had said as she puffed on a ciggie and gazed out her back window. “Imagine John trying to sleep with his mother’s body resting in the parlour. He would never be comfortable in his own home, again. And…well, if Bobby’s to be ousted so soon, it’s better to wake her there, rather than any of our houses. Better for John, all around, even if it invites more gossip, more... humiliation.” She lifted her eyes to Paul’s, expecting to see judgement there. She was stirred to find something else coming from the young McCartney – unexpected warmth and a measure of empathy she would not have looked for in him.  

“You’ll not tell him that, will you?” she asked, and it sounded like a plea. “It’s hard enough on him to learn these things. He’s so angry, now, at all of us for not telling him so much. And at the neighborhood for the looks, and the gossip – which is precisely why we’d never told him! And at Julia… for the sake of her girls.” Mimi tamped out her cigarette.

“Right now, I think he believes we’re waking Julia at her own house because it’s Bobby’s right, as I suppose it is,” she shrugged. “If he thought we were just being over-protective of him, as though he were too fragile…well…you know.”

“Aye, I think I do.” Paul agreed after a beat, holding Mimi’s gaze. “And if I’m bein’ presumptuous forgive it, but I’m grateful for you for thinking this through, Mimi. You wake him at Bobby’s and John never has to see that house or that particular room again, ever-after. Everything’s hard enough.”

He watched Mimi nod and gulp as she tried to steel her composure against the flood of feelings – grief, shame, exhaustion, worry – that were swirling about within her and all at war with her pride. Seeing her visibly force down the tears that had suddenly arisen -- showing themselves for just a moment before disappearing behind a hard swallow -- Paul had never felt so much in company with John’s aunt. He understood the instinct not to put her water before his eyes, but felt sorry for it, realizing that he would consent to see them, to be a willing witness to the blameless suffering of a woman he had never really understood until this moment.

And all unexpectedly, Paul felt his own emotions welling up inside him, too. A sense of his own loss meeting hers, his own need for self-control acknowledging a master of the game while seeing the real cost of it for the first time – the damage wrought by choosing aloofness over vulnerability, cold efficiency over a warm and reasonable tolerance of disorder, the distancing of others when what one most needed of them was a little support – a right word in season.

And how singular and lonely it all showed itself to be, in this moment.

He couldn’t hide the thought, nor the way his own carefully compressed feelings – his own secluded grief, his ambitions, his anger, his ceaseless thoughts of John -- seemed to erupt like a geyser within him. It showed in Paul’s eyes -- not with tears, but with a wrenching, full-scale revelation of the deep ache that resided within him and never gave itself away to others (except what he could show to John), and never really went away.

But Mimi saw it. Paul knew she did. She saw his look and her eyebrows raised, and her mouth opened as though she wanted to say something but didn’t possess the words to do anything for him, or for herself -- as though they were both trapped. Having each sought out isolation for the sake of emotional safety, they discovered, now, that they lived in similar lock-downs of their own makings, the difference being Paul's cell was still quite new, and might yet be broken out of.

Mimi's had been reinforced for decades. She would be moving within its solid confines for the rest of her life.

At the moment, it was the younger of these two remarkably self-possessed people -- sharing only one common interest, one common love, – who dared to bridge all of their similar miseries with the sort of speaking that could either shatter them or make both of them stronger.

“Mimi,” Paul said in a low voice – and with more gentleness than he’d ever heard in himself, “You’re a good auntie to John. If no one has ever said that to you, I’ll say it now.”

“Please don’t,” Mimi said, pressing her lips into a thin line of resistance against his words, and her own need to hear them.

Paul shook his head mildly, determined to be heard. “No. Woman, be told _,_ yeah? I know it’s hard, sometimes, to be the one who is left to hold everything together when you want to fall apart…” Paul felt himself struggle against thoughts of his brother Michael’s dependence, his father’s gruff expectations, and the weight of his dead mother’s dreams for him. “But you’ve given yourself away, for love of John. And he knows it. Be sure of that. Deep in himself, he does know.”

A sound escaped from Mimi – a small, aching peep permitted to escape from her whole swallowed back song of a life – the sound as acceptable to Paul as rain in the spring. He looked down at her and saw Mimi quivering like a bird caught in a net, with no means of escaping by her own wing.

Before he could stop himself, Paul took her hand into both of his and gave a reassuring squeeze. “Mimi,” he said, softly, “Missus…may I give you a kiss? For my appreciation?”

She let out a little gasp of disbelief and stared at him, trembling and meaning to shake her head in refusal. And yet, somehow, Mimi felt herself nodding -- all silent and fearful, and…so breathtakingly needy.

And then Paul McCartney, that common boy of no standing, bent down slightly and placed a tender kiss on Mimi’s cheek – light and respectful. It felt like the kiss of a son, for a mother long missed.

And Mimi finally could not stop her tears, soundless, but flowing like a damn unblocked.

And when he saw them, Paul drew her in, wrapping his arms around her and allowing her to weep into his chest while he laid his head upon her hair and instinctively murmured all of those meaningless Irish words and sounds of reassurance he’d grown  up with -- learned from his mother of a stormy night, or on a day full of cuts and bruises, “ _H’shesh, now, you’re fine…you’re grand, aye…and haven’t I got ye, now, dearie?... h’esh, shesh, and the angels are weeping with you, aren’t they… so, aye, then, you’re fine…_ ”

A nap-tousled John Lennon had wandered into the edge of this quiet scene between Mimi and Paul -- his cold auntie and his warm best mate, the two most important people in his life -- and all he could do in the sight of them was to stare, and blink, and stare again in silent wonder. 

After a minute, he backed away, not daring to intrude and vowing to himself never to speak a word of what he’d seen -- not to anyone, and especially not to Mimi or Paul. That way he would never be tempted to ask them whether the moment had been about him, because he just knew it was. And he couldn't have borne the asking of it, in case anyone had to lie.

John hoped it was because he was fuss-worthy, and not because he was a loser. 

***

For once, Jim McCartney didn’t use the recent whispers about Julia to reiterate all the reasons he disliked John Lennon – indeed, he was unusually kind -- almost delicate --  when broaching the subject of Julia, and expressed distaste for the energy of the local chinwaggers as they whispered and shook their heads and predicted damnation all around, to the seventh son of the seventh son. “They’ll be judged themselves, on that,” he said.

As Paul was heading out to the wake, his father surprised him with a package to take along, “With my condolences, tell them. It’s just a rice pudding to add to the table.”

Paul was touched. “Thank you, Da,” he beamed, “You know John loves your puddings and custards.”

“Aye, he may, but it’s that glutton Harrison who can inhale the bowlful in a minute,” Jim said with a sly grin. “Be sure John gets a bit before that lad hits the kitchen, eh?”

His father had been prophetic. Paul had no sooner added his father’s contribution to the table full of refreshments than George was at his shoulder, “Cor, Paulie, is that Jim’s own?”

“You know I didn’t make it.”

“Did he send a custard, too?” George’s ability to suck down Jim McCartney’s custard had become legendary within their circle.

Paul gave him a slow eyeroll, “Mate, you’re droolin’. I’m to tell you to stay away, at least until John’s had a bit.”

“Oh yeah, who says?”

“Me da, actually.”

George was stunned. “Jesus Christ! Jim said that? About John?”

“He did, and all.”

“Cor! Thank God me ma doesn’t have to die before he’ll be nice to me, anyway.”

The joke went over like a lead balloon with Paul, who gave his friend a quick rap to the head. “Say that again, and I’ll kick your skinny arse all the way to Blackpool. Don’t joke about your Louise dyin’, you idiot.”

George was properly chagrined. “Aye, that was a bad cheek. M’sorry, Paul.”

Paul slammed a spoon at him. “Oh, put some pudding in your yap if it will shut it.” He looked around the kitchen, where most of the band and assorted school mates were beginning to arrive and awkwardly dawdle about. “Where’s John, then?”

“He’s been all around, hasn’t he? Think he’s havin’ a ciggie out back. Half and again annoyed that you weren’t the first here.”

“Aye, Da kept me with the pudding. How is he?”

George shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think he’s truly arrived, if you know what I mean. Been waitin' for you.”

Paul instantly made his way to the back garden. He found John pacing, wolfing down smoke with a vengeance. “Nice of you to show up,” he snarled at Paul.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, lad. My da stopped me with a pudding to bring by.”

“Well then, Harrison’s set for the night, anyway.”

“He is, indeed.” Paul blew a cloud of his own. “And you? How’s John Lennon keeping?”

“You should have been here, McCartney. You’re never late, and now today of all days…” _I needed you_ , read the subtext.

“I’m here, now, love,” Paul flung an arm around his friend and they paced together, smoking their ciggies down to stubs.

“Haven’t been to see her, yet?”

“Nay…no. Was waitin’ for you, wasn’t I?” The spite and frustration had to fall somewhere, Paul knew, so he brushed it off.

“You needn’t see her, you know, if you don’t like.”

John turned to face him. “D’ye think?”

“You do what you want, John, yeah? Who can gainsay you?”

“Mimi will insist.”

“She won’t.”

Paul sounded so certain about Mimi that John couldn't help recalling the scene he’d stumbled into between Paul and his aunt. He narrowed his eyes, wondering whether the two of them had discussed this very question, and feeling a little bit excluded, and a little paranoid, that they might have.

“It’s your mum, John love, and Julia was not unlike you, except maybe more forgiving, ya sod. She’d understand, no matter what.”

John tossed his smoldering ciggie into the grass and met Paul’s eyes. “But you think I should?”

The younger boy studied his friend’s face, saw the uncertainty in his strained expression. “I think only you can decide that, and my own thoughts shouldn’t weigh. Think on how it was when your uncle died, yeah? Were you better or worse for having seen him all laid out?”

John bit his lip, remembering a few years past, and hung his head. “I was glad, and all. Not in that moment, but by-and-by, you know. Was glad I'd seen him. But this is my mum…”

Paul took his arm, sliding his touch down until he could put his fingers about John’s wrist. “Look you,” he said quietly. “If you want to go in and see Julia, I’ll be with you. And if you don’t, if you want to stay out here and smoke your lungs black, I’ll be here, with you. Either way, you know?”

“But…” John bit back an oath. “I need to know, Paulie. If it was Mary lyin’ in there, alone in a box, with people peerin’ at her and then goin’ off for a sandwich and a drink, how would it be for you? Would you be put-off? Would you go in and see her?”

Paul lit another ciggie, handed it off to Lennon and then flicked his lighter open and shut as he held John’s gaze. _Open. Shut. Open. Shut_ , as though the thing was an oracle and could give him the right answer.

“You forget, love, I had that choice taken from me,” he said in one of those dangerously quiet tones that meant he was on edge.   _Open. Shut._ “And I’ve resented that I had no chance to see her…to say goodbye. I’ve felt that loss.” _Open, shut._

 _I've felt that loss..._ John heard it, took the words and his friend's undisguised resentment into consideration, and then stayed Paul's hand. 

“I’m just afraid,” he admitted in a near whisper. “What if I fall apart?”

“Then you fall apart. And who’d judge you for weepin’ and keenin’ before your own mother’s body, then? I’d fuckin’ dare anyone to do it.”

Paul sounded as murderous as the heat suddenly showing in his dark eyes.

John had seen his friend drop a fellow only once – a creep who’d been running his hands over a young girl who clearly didn’t want any of it. John, blind without his glasses hadn’t noticed, but Paul had spotted them at a distance and headed over, laying the bloke out with one solid punch to the gut and then standing above him, panting, daring him to try to rise before the lass had gotten away. John had gaped, all astonished at the sight of him. In that moment, Paul had looked like a delicate, sweet-faced angel who’d as soon kill you as look at you, nevertheless.

He was looking that way, again, and it was all John needed to know he could do this terrifying thing.

“You’ll come now? With me?”

Paul led John by the hand, all the way in to Julia.

***

“She looks…” John’s hush voice cracked as he stood trembling before his mother’s casket. “She looks… _good_. Like herself, I mean.”

Indeed, Julia’s face had been remarkably untouched by the accident, the back of her head having taken the brunt of it. Swathed in a light blue turban and a pretty dress, she seemed to be sleeping, her expression rather serene, all things considered.

Paul said nothing, merely keeping his hand at John’s elbow. He could feel his partner shivering as he stared and stared at his mother, letting his eyes wander down to her feet, then up again to her head, as though he was scanning her into his memory.

Paul stared too, but his mind was racing, as was his heart. _This_  is what it would have been like to have seen Mary – a quiet encounter with loss, with everlasting stasis, with an immovable reality that could bear nothing into the future and only belong to the past. He imagined Mary there, frail past reason, and hoped her face had matched Julia’s tranquility.

Paul watched John reach out to touch his mother’s hand, only to pull back in horror. “She’s cold, Macca. My mum’s’ cold as ice. I could feel it even in the air above her, even before I touched her hand!”

“I know, lad, it’s …”

“Why don’t they give her a blanket, then? She’s cold!” John’s voice began to raise, a tinge of panic in his tone.

“I’ll go ask Bobby for one,” Paul said gently. “Or I’ll ask Mimi.”

John grabbed at his hand. “No! Don’t leave me.”

“Okay, I won’t.” Paul fell back alongside John, lacing their fingers and giving a squeeze. “I’m still here, John.”

“Are you out of your fucking mind, getting a blanket, you daft fucking git, _she’s dead_. You can’t warm her up! We can’t…she's cold...” John’s other hand went to his chest, as he struggled for breath.

“C’mon, Johnny,” Paul murmured, “Slow yourself, lad, there’s a chair over there, let’s --”

“Fuck you, Macca,” John’s voice began to rise. “Fuck you,” he spat again, this time louder. "Fuck you dead,  _Fuck you!_ Think I’m gonna sit and be civilized and…and…fucking be reasonable for you? _Fuck you down the devil!_  She’s dead! Me mum’s dead!”

John shoved Paul away from him roughly, with both hands, and then took a fist to the wall behind him. Paul pulled at him, grabbing at John’s arms before he could do it again. “You’re gonna bust your hand, Johnny, now come on, love --”

“Get the fuck away from me, McCartney,” John said dangerously as they tussled. He swore between his teeth, wrenching himself out of his grasp and throwing a punch that left Paul seeing stars as he tried to hang on. “Go fuck yourself with your…with your…fucking… _blanket_ , like I’m some stupid... Your fucking _condescension._ Your fucking…” John’s voice broke, his shoulders began to heave as he turned away and loosed an agonized, raw keen over the cold, dead body of his mother, Julia.

His mother...Julia... _Julia!_

“Oh, _mum!”_ John cried out, and the only response was silence. His first encounter with the unresponsive abyss Paul had called The Empty.

He couldn’t see the faces beginning to gather, peering around the doorway of the small room, but Paul did, and as he made to stand behind John’s shoulder, to be as unobtrusive as possible beside his friend, he motioned with his head to Mimi, inviting her in. Then he cast a look at everyone else that said in no uncertain terms they were categorically unwelcome into this intensely private scene.

John was barely standing, a mess of gulping tears and small whining pleas – all unintelligible, but Paul recognized them, could translate them in his heart; he knew those pleadings intimately -- knew how quickly they would echo back from the Empty and just reinforce the devastation, and he held John responsible for nothing that had occurred.

_No one is to blame…_

At Mimi’s careful touch, John fell at once into his aunt's arms, collapsing on her slender frame with his full weight, burying himself into her neck as his tortured sobs choked loose. Mimi looked at Paul from over John’s shudders, her eyes round with pain for his sake.

“You have him?” Paul mouthed.

Mimi nodded, closing her eyes and tightening her hold on her sorrow-drenched John.

And with that, Paul stepped away. He went to the door and, without a word or an apology, closed it firmly in the faces of those still lurking there.  He was determined that no one else would collect a thrilled glance at the wreckage of John Lennon, whose grief would not be permitted to entertain them, nor to provide further grist for their chat mills.

Then Paul leaned back against the door, legs splayed, arms crossed, like a sentinel on a hard watch, and bowed his bruised head with his own shuddering sigh.

***

It took nearly an hour but eventually Mimi managed to settle John down, convincing him to sit beside her and then holding his hand as he worked through dozens of shivery breaths and began to collect himself. She talked of simple things, memories of Julia in her childhood, before all of her bad choices took their tolls. Paul, trying not to eavesdrop, could nevertheless hear bits of their meandering conversation. He smiled to hear John ask, in as innocent a voice as he’d ever heard from him, “But were you and mum always so different?” And Mimi’s soft response, “Julia always said I was too much a mother.”

But she could never have children, Mimi, Paul thought with a twinge of sadness. John had told him that. Julia on the other hand, free and fecund, had in fact been the very source of the only motherhood Mimi would ever get to experience. What a world, Paul thought. Full of irony and loss and lonely people. Where did it all come from, heaven or hell? And why did so much of it seem to belong to young lads in Liverpool?

When he looked up, it was to see Mimi and John standing before him -- Mimi fully in control but with a tense smile; John looking rather dazed.

“I think we could all use a bit of tea,” she said.

“You’re still here…” John croaked out.

“Never left, John, love,” Paul said looking directly at him, calm and level, as though Lennon’s own bedlam of chaos hadn’t romped over him just an hour before. “Said I’d stay, didn’t I?”

“Macca, I…” John looked ashamed. “I didn’t mean the things I –” He squinted at Paul “What’s on your face?”

Paul touched the growing shiner near his eye. “Oh, that,” he snorted, crossing his arms again. “Some tosser. Thought he could play rough. Barely grazed me though.”

“Oh, erm...Anyone I know?”

“No. A poof. A thorough poofster, he was.” Paul opened the door and motioned them through it. “I’ll settle with the little pissant eventually, though.”

John blushed, completely mortified by the evidence of his madness. “Think a little pissant is worth all that fuss?”

“Oh, definitely, Lennon.” Paul brought his head near as his hand closed over John’s shoulder and they headed toward the parlour. “Someday, when he’s not expecting it, I’m gonna fuss him right into tomorrow, I will.”

***

Refreshed by several cups of tea, more cigarettes and a few bites taken in the company of his bandmates (all of whom, save George, seemed scared into stupidity by John’s grief and barely able to form sentences), John began to come around to himself. His mates wisely ignored how visibly his hands still shook. Paul, meanwhile, had taken himself off to find John’s stepsisters, Julia and Jacquie, all too aware that while John’s sorrow was eating up all the oxygen in the house, the girls were likely being neglected.

He’d put George in charge of John, and now the gangly teenager was standing before Lennon, trying to tempt him with a dish of Jim McCartney’s pudding.

“You should have some, you know. It’s gear.”

“Thanks Georgie,” John said quietly, but with some affection. “I’m not hungry. Appreciate that you saved some for me, though.”

“Yeah, well,” George said with a solemn face, “Paul told me he’d have my nuts for a handbag if I didn’t.”

John choked on his smoke, and sputtered, looking about for a sip of anything while George pounded him on his back. “Fucking Macca,” he shook his head in wonder.

At that moment Paul strode in, looking furious and pointedly pouring himself a whiskey from the bar meant for adults. His threw back a shot and then poured another, his hands shaking nearly as badly as John’s.

“What’s up, Paul,” George asked.

“Nothin’,”

“You look like it’s somethin’.”

“Nothin’,” Paul repeated. With a shrug he explained, “Some arse called me a poof.”

“That seems to be going around,” John said dully, chin in hand.

“Who would do that,” Ivan Vaughan asked, interested and suddenly less sluggish than he’d been. “Was it Bobby?”

Paul shot him a look.

“He’s lyin’” George sneered, dipping into the pudding he’d saved for John. “Worst liar I ever saw.”

“Good job saving the pudding for John, Georgie,” Paul spat.

George looked down at his dish, as though he’d just noticed what he’d been eating. “Oh…”

“It’s alright, Paul –” John began, only to grow silent as Paul knelt beside him. With a cupped hand, he whispered into John’s ear, his eyes still snapping in rage.

A minute later, the parlor gathering heard a smashing of crockery, and John Lennon shouting “Oh, fuck it all! I’m done this night,” as the back door slammed shut and he started running.

Rushing into the kitchen, Mimi saw a smear of rice pudding dripping along the edge of a window and Paul cautiously collecting the pieces of his father’s – his mother’s – pudding bowl, ignoring everyone around him. Once he had set them neatly on the table, he took off after John, running into the night.

 

 


	6. Staring Into the Abyss with Whisky and Chocolates

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paul held John’s look. All without thinking, he lifted John’s hand to his lips, placing a soft kiss where his knuckles were swollen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The nextchapter will bring us to Julia's funeral and it's immediate aftermath. I hope you like this, and I really appreciate all the kind comments and encouragement from y'all.

**Sunday into Monday, July 21, 1958**

 

When Paul caught up to him, John had almost reached Mendips. He was a few houses away and completely stalled, just looking about himself and wearing an expression of weariness that went beyond the physical, as though John’s very soul was exhausted beyond telling. It all felt like too much, finally. As though he’d been bearing too much hurt, for too long, from too young an age.

He was leaning against a gatepost as if he simply had nothing left -- could not find the means to move himself forward another step.

“Seems I’m always off looking for you,” Paul said as he slowed his step to meet him. He touched John’s elbow. “Luckily, I always find you by-and-by. Why’d you run off, son?”

John’s face was a study of anguish in the shadows. “Ah, Paulie, I just couldn’t. Couldn’t handle one more bleedin’ shot of despair, even if it weren’t all mine. Felt like me head was splittin' down the middle.”

“Like a pudding bowl thrown toward a window.”

“That was ugly, yeah,” John winced. “Watching the pudding slip down the wall…felt like I was watching me own brains slippin’ away, down and down. Couldn’t bear any more, you know? Too bad about the bowl, though.”

“Just a thing.” Paul shrugged. “We’ll live without it, yeah? We live without more important things…”

“But t’was your mam’s, and all. And probably your granny’s first.”

Paul jostled John’s shoulder with his own. “It was a handy projectile, you know? And well-thrown, I thought. Probably the pudding skewed it off target a bit.”

“Sure, that was it,” John replied, a smile tugging at his lips. “Pudding weighed it down and so the window was saved. Harrison’s probably grieving those last lost spoonfuls, though.”

“Aye, likely. C’mon, got yer key? Let’s go in. You look knackered.”

“Can’t walk another step, son.”

“Well then roll yourself over there, lad, because Mary’s little boy ain’t carrying you. I’m ready for a good long kip, meself.” Paul took the key off John and led him along.

When they reached John’s room, Paul gently badgered him into putting on pajamas and washing his teeth while he did the same. He figured keeping to something like a routine might be the best way to steady John and set him up to sleep.

And in truth, Paul didn’t want to talk about the evening. He thought a toothbrush in John’s mouth might effectively silence him.

That worked – perhaps a little too well. Standing tightly together as they brushed their teeth before the smallish bathroom sink, John seemed to be intently studying Paul’s face in the mirror, his drained expression becoming thoughtful, and a blush touching his cheeks.  

“Whuht?” Paul asked over own his vigorous scrubbing.

John looked away, shaking his head. He put a fresh flannel under the cold tap, wrung it out, folded the fabric into a tight square and then, turning Paul’s face to his, John began to gently bathe the bruise he’d so recently dealt his best mate.  

Paul winced a little, tossed his brush, and looked up from his own hooded lids into John’s deep brown eyes, so loaded with remorse.

They didn’t speak. For once, Paul had nothing to say, had no control over anything as John held his gaze, his toothbrush still hanging between his teeth. He wanted the eye-to-eye connection that had always fired that thing between them – that thing so nameless, and reassuring, and grounding.

He found it. Paul didn't look away. And then there was John Lennon, holding his partner's head steady and soothing Paul's bruised face with a tenderness he never knew he possessed or ever could.

After a moment, he refolded the flannel to a cooler side and brought it once again to Paul’s face while their eyes held, and the silence between them grew until it seemed to fill the whole room with some force of expression for which they as yet had no language, beyond a look.

Swallowing down an untidy mouthful of toothpaste with a visible gulp, Paul bit his lower lip. They both suddenly exhaled, as though they were only just remembering to breathe.

“There, now,” John murmured over his toothbrush.

Paul pulled it from John’s lips and tossed it in the sink to join his own. He gave a devious little smile. Taking the flannel out of John’s hand he dabbed it at the copious dripping foam that was all around the oblivious Lennon’s mouth.

“There, now…” he said in return. “What’ll it be, love? You gonna swallow or spit?”

John spat. The moment was broken as he spewed toothpaste and saliva all over Paul in a burst of laughter he couldn't hold back. “Ah, you’re _filthy_ , Macca!” he exclaimed, ducking his head as his friend picked up both toothbrushes and began to flick them in John’s direction.

Mimi arrived home to the sound of two young men laughing and roughhousing with each other – foul language audible throughout the house. Normally, she acknowledged, it would have brought her speeding up the staircase, scolds at the ready. 

Tonight, it sounded like music to her ears and she stayed below. She even caught herself tolerating her nephew's bellowed-out “ _Ye fuckin’ fiend, Macca,"_  grateful that he sounded like himself for the first time in almost a week.

After carrying on long enough to tempt Mimi away from her good resolve – there was a worrisome-sounding crash amid the furniture at one point -- the boys settled down and cleaned themselves free of spit and goo. Their shared exhaustion hit them suddenly, as though they'd become punch-drunk from the release of acting out. They called it a night, settling into John’s bed in a fashion that had become not only familiar but sensible, for them. John’s back was against the wall, Paul beside him and taking a bit more room because he was a restless sleeper, constantly needing to turn, flip, or lay on his back to find his rest. It was a good deal for John, too, since Paul – always first to awaken – wouldn’t need to climb over him to get his day started.

Once they had themselves situated, John leaned over Paul, staring intently at him.

“What are you lookin’ at,” Paul asked, slightly annoyed.

John made a deep frown and, with one finger, traced all around the deepening bruise he’d left on Paul’s face.

“I did that,” he said in a quiet voice, looking as ashamed as a small boy having to admit to an act of infant carnage. “I’m so sorry, Paul. I don’t remember doing it, but I know I did.”

“Not my first shiner, you know,” Paul’s softness matched John’s own.

“No, but…your best mate shouldn’t be bustin’ up your pretty face.”

“Call me pretty again, Lennon, you’ll have my knee to your balls and no mistake.” Paul bent a knee against John’s thigh for a proximal demonstration. “Just like that, and you’re singin’ soprano for a month.”

“But the _mouth_ you have on you, Macca,” John smiled. “George told me you threatened to slice his nuts off today, too. Seems wicked to me, you know. Choirboy lips having congress with such words.”

“Aye, it’s like people saying, ‘What’s that polite McCartney boy doin’ with Lennon, that toothache of a lad?’”

John snickered, his finger still tracing Paul’s bruise.  “I’m truly sorry, though. Does it hurt?”

“Well, it didn’t until you started touching it.”

John quickly pulled his hand away. “Sorry, sorry.”

“Christ, stop apologizing, John. A hard day needs somethin’ to show for it, okay? This is it, then. And I’m not one of Mimi’s dainty china cups, you know.”

“Oh, aye, you’re _braw._ ” John rolled his eyes with a gurgle of mirth. “Right fit for rugby, you are.”

“I could play rugby!”

John’s chuckle turned into an outright giggle until he caught Paul’s eyes and grew quite again, his voice low and full of shame.

“I fell apart, Paul.”

“You did.”

“I took it out on you.”

Paul shrugged. “When don’t you, love?”

They were speaking in whispers, as though the straining bed couldn’t bear the additional weight of sound -- could take only the intimacy of contrition and forgiveness, in that moment.

“My fist hurts, now. Serves me right.” John flexed it before Paul’s face. Paul took it in his own hand.

“Not at all surprised, son.”

John looked horrified at the implication. “Did I really hit you that hard?”

“Hmmm. Maybe this babyface is just that tough, and all,” Paul said, running his fingertips lightly over John’s knuckles and giving him a smile. “Of course, it mighta been the wall behind me. You gave that a go, too.”

John felt a wave of relief. Yeah, punching a wall…his hand could have felt a lot worse, then. Still…

“Macca…It’s gonna be all over Liverpool, tomorrow: _Lennon fell apart_.”

A shrug. “Fuck ‘em, John. Just fuck ‘em, yeah?”

John sighed in mock consternation. “That mouth. Someone really needs to do something about your mouth, Macca.”

“No, I’m serious, love. Just fuck ‘em. There’s worse things they could say than ‘he keened over his mother’s body.’”

“Like what, then?” John said doubtfully.

“Like, ‘He wasn’t there at all.’ Try that one on and walk around in it, for a while.”

“God, the girls…” John said. Paul nodded in a dreadful silence as they both considered Julia’s young daughters.

“I’m glad I saw her,” John whispered after a minute. “I _am_ glad. How she looked…it was so much better than the picture of her I had in me head, you know? Thinkin’ she’d been crushed and battered? This was better.”

“Aye, I’m glad you saw her, too, John.” He gave Lennon’s hand a squeeze, still not letting go. “C’mon, let’s get ourselves some sleep, now, before the night is lost. The day will come soon enough.”

John agreed, but then raised himself up on one arm, looking down at Paul again. “And you stayed.”

“I told you I wouldn’t leave you.”

“But you _stayed_ , Macca,” John repeated. “You stayed even when you had every reason to leave. I thank you for it.”

Paul held John’s look. All without thinking, he lifted John’s hand to his lips, placing a feather-soft kiss where the knuckles were swollen.

John gasped, but left his hand in Paul’s grasp. Without a word, he leaned over his partner and kissed the place where he’d bruised him, his lips just lingering.

He heard a deep sigh. When he raised his head he saw that Paul had closed his eyes, was shielding his look from John. He seemed not to be breathing.

Yes, well…. Maybe closed eyes and stillness were the right things for both of them at the moment, John thought as he settled back against the wall. “Goodnight, Paul,” he whispered.

“Goodnight, John, love.”  Paul whispered back.

Only as he was drifting into twilight did Lennon realize that Macca was still holding his hand.

He fell asleep smiling.

***

Toward on to three in the morning, John felt Paul moving away from him, tugging himself out of John’s hands, which had been grasping Paul’s nightshirt. “Where you goin’” he mumbled, trying to drag him back.

“Need a pee, mate. Be back in a mo’.”

“'kay,” John mush-mouthed, his head turning into the pillow. Paul watched over him for a moment, until he heard the deep regular breaths and felt safe to leave.

Mimi, herself having difficulty finding sleep, discovered Paul in the kitchen, a glass before him, a cigarette in his hand. The boy smoked much too much for her liking, she thought. She raised her eyebrows at him, and Paul shrugged back, rather enjoying the notion that – in a staggering development, wholly unexpected in the history of mankind – he and Mimi were managing a conversation without words: “ _Couldn’t sleep either, you_?” Her brow had asked. “ _What’s sleep_?” his shoulder replied.

Paul raised his glass. “Made a dent in your milk supply. D’ye mind?”

“Not at all,” Mimi said, “in fact, sounds a good idea.” She got a glass and poured herself the same. “I’m just a bit astonished not to find you drinking my best single malt and smoking a Republican cutty, to boot.”

“Ah, she’s cheeky at 3:00 AM, is Mimi,” Paul smiled.

“More than half past, I’d say,” she corrected. Opening a cabinet, she reached around and brought out a box of chocolates, laying them on the table as she sat.

"Chocolate!" Paul’s eyes lit up as he reached for one. He batted his eyes at her in a bold tease. “Yer spoilin’ me, Missus!”

“You’re already quite spoilt, I think, in your own way,” she said, the smallest of grins tugging at her lips. “But we’re awake in the wee small hours of a day where we’ll need to keep up our strength.”

“And chocolate gives us strength?”

“No, boy. Chocolate gives us _heart_ ,” pronounced Mimi with authority, “and the heart gives us the strength to go on.”

Paul helped himself to a second piece and said, “Well. Better have a lot on hand for Julia and Jacqui when they get home, then.”

Mimi stared at Paul for full minute while he munched away, finishing off the rich candy’s residue with a few swallows of milk before immediately lighting two ciggies.

“Why do you say that,” she asked, accepting one of the smokes.

Paul sat back in his chair and gave her a direct look. “Well, they’ll need a lot of heart, won’t they, when they come back from Edinburgh in time for school only to hear that their mum’s dead, their dad never married her, so they’re now illegitimate bastards and the talk of Liverpool, and ‘oh by the way, he was evicted and you’ll be livin’ with Auntie Harriet, now…’”

He blew out a tremendous cloud of smoke and shook his head. “Mimi, how could you’se?” He said bluntly. “What were you all thinkin’ sendin’ the girls off, and not even tellin’ them their mum’s lost to them? And their home? And, in a way, even their names? What in Christ were you all thinking?”

Mimi crossed her arms against Paul’s words, and drew in her own huge drag of smoke. “I can’t for one moment imagine how that is even a bit of your business, young man.”

“Nah, I’m sure you can’t,” he breathed as he bent forward, one hand going up to his own shoulder in a self-embrace that gave the impression of a boy folding in on himself. He suddenly looked very small across the table, his posture all askew. He looked up from beneath his lashes, for once not even thinking of the effect his expressive eyes might have on Mimi – and in this moment it was a powerful one – and locked his sight on her. “Do you want to know…” he breathed, “Do you want to know why I needed to be with John, today? Why it was important to me to stay with him if he decided he wanted to see Julia?”

Mimi narrowed her eyes. “I believe you’re about to tell me, whether I want to hear it or not.”

And so, Paul told her. As Mimi smoked and listened, Paul kept his voice level as he slowly rocked back-and-forth in his chair, both arms fully about himself, now, until half his face seemed hidden. His dark eyes were full of bite as he quietly told John’s formidable aunt what she and her family had likely done to Julia and Jacquie Dykins by so instantly removing them from Liverpool, and distancing them from circumstances and events that would forever alter their lives.  

He told her what it felt like to be sent away at the most difficult moment of his own existence, to learn he had nothing to offer his own father in his sorrow, which made him feel worthless -- of no value to anyone in that moment, but only a nuisance – a picayune task that needed to be struck off the to-do list in the face of more important matters.

He told her how his young grief was made to seem an inconsequential thing, without meaning to anyone but himself and therefore easy to put aside, and opined that his displacement went on far too long and disconnected him from his own heartbreak, until he felt like a complete non-entity. A nobody – no one of importance to anyone -- untethered and alone and cold all the way to his bones.

He told Mimi, to whom family was paramount, how he’d come to feel as though his own family – no, his life itself -- had gone aloof from him, had left him hanging and alone and unready to face the Empty that was everywhere, most awfully in his own house, when he finally returned.

“I felt like the loneliest soul on the planet, you know, like I’d died myself and was just a ghost movin’ about.” Paul said to Mimi, no longer able to hold her eyes because she had cast them resolutely down and was staring at her own hands. “And if I could have spared John any bit of that, yesterday, then I meant to do it. I’m proud of him, that he saw Julia.” He nodded as if to validate his own thought. “He’ll always have that.”

Mimi pursed her lips as though she was displeased, pushing back her chair and leaving the kitchen, only to return a moment later with a bottle and two glasses. She poured a short bit of whisky for Paul, and another for herself.

“I thank you for telling me, that.” She said quietly as she sat. “Perhaps I can make you understand something, and it will…well, perhaps it will help put some of that away for you.”

“I doubt you can,” he challenged. “And what a shock it was, tonight, to learn that a better class of family doesn’t change the way it goes about breaking the hearts of its young’uns.”

Mimi flushed at Paul’s class-consciousness, so ready as her own to enter into almost any question. She gave him a look as direct as the one he’d thrown at her. “It’s just, the weight of it, lad. Enough to lose their mother, but to see that loss on others…it’s no easy thing. The thinking…and I’m sure it was your own father’s thought, too, is ‘Why burden the young with it? Why make them witness to it when the people who are supposed to be strong for them are flailing about in such sorrow?’”

“Why _burden_?” Paul said, his eyebrows raised, “haven’t I just told you, all it did was make it that much heavier, to be pushed away from it? To think it a weak thing, to grieve?”

“Yes, I heard you,” she interrupted, sharp old Mimi rising to the surface. “And I think…well, perhaps it is a different thing, for boys. Perhaps your family should have trusted you handle it. But the girls…there is so much to consider, you know. Julia didn’t just die, she exposed their own standing as a shameful one, there’s all the gossip --”

“Shameful?" Paul sounded downright scornful. "The girls are _faultless_ here, Mimi! If there is any shame at all, it’s because everyone else’s minds are so polluted, so foul with the need to blame little girls for what they had no part in! Do you think they’ll feel less shamed for being sent away, as though they’re the dirty laundry of the family? Seems to me that what you’re doing is actually teaching them to be more ashamed, when in truth they should be holdin’ their heads up and telling the world to worry about its own sins and disgraces. Do’y know, my mum used to say…” he broke off for a moment, as though weighing whether to repeat it.

“What did your mother say, Paul?”

He looked at Mimi straight on. “She used to say, ‘To the pure, all things are pure…’”

Mimi looked down at her drink. “Are you saying I’m dirty, then?”

Paul blinked, a little chagrined. “No, missus, I’m not saying that, not about you. Not about _you_ , personally. I know you for a good woman.”

He reached across the table, taking her fingertips into his hand. “It’s the whole city, the whole…fucking culture, excuse me. It’s... it's the whole _world_ of folks thinkin’ the worst of each other and…and fecking _delighting_ in it, and seein’ who they can trap and cry scandal over, as though it elevates themselves, when we’re all in the fu --” He corrected himself in time. “When we’re all in the godforsaken gutter, all the time, and just tryin’ to find a way to get by.”

He slipped his hand back from her grasp and swallowed the whisky. “There’s no mercy out there, Mimi, and damn little real trust or kindness. If we can’t find it in our families, then…how the hell do we ever fix all the ways we’re broken? How do Julia and Jacquie ever trust anyone again, after this? Did any of you think about that? Christ, I will never understand you – any of you – sending your weens away, cutting yourselves off from them when they need you most.”

Mimi threw back her drink as well, wiping her mouth with ladylike dabs of a napkin. “You’re hard on us, I think,” she said. “If everyone’s in the gutter trying to get by, and if it’s mercy you think lacking, then you might have a little mercy for people who are doing the best they can with the world as it is. Including, I suspect, your father and your own family.”

“Aye, maybe.” Paul conceded quietly. “I’ve tried, you know, and maybe not enough. But Mimi, how could you send them off to Edinburgh, and not even tell them Julia is dead?”

“We thought if we told them, they’d never want to get on the train…that they’d…that they’d make everything harder for wanting to stay.”

It was as though a lightbulb went off – as though a spear of understanding had pierced both their breasts at once.

“And there it is, the heart of it,” Paul said, pointing a finger at Mimi. “ _Rem acu tetigisti_ ” he pronounced, grateful now for his Latin class. “It means ‘You have touched on the matter with a needle.’”

They stared at one another, wondering what was left to be said.

Mimi was the first to surface from the depths of their mutual silence. “I suppose we could compare all of this to the war, you know. When the bombs were threatening we wanted to be sure the children were spared – we sent them away from the cities and ports, sent them out to the countryside where they would be safe. To insure that they would get to live out their full lives, you know, without being maimed or wounded, or having to see so much devastation and then carry all that with them, forever.” She gave Paul a look that seemed to plead out loud for his agreement.

“It was all of it meant well, Paul. Meant to save, not to shatter. It’s just like that, the same thing."

Paul’s eyes were wide with regret, because he wished he could agree, but could not.

“It's not my wish to argue, Mimi, and I'm not disagreeing just to be difficult, but that analogy won't work. The thing is, y'see, most of those sent away were able to be reunited with their families again, weren’t they? They came back and were able to jump into their mum’s arms, and bring their lives back to some kind of normal, yeah? How many came back to...to a great, yawning expanse of the Empty?”

Paul rose, clearing the glasses from the table and bringing them to the sink where he began to soap them clean. As he rinsed them, one by one, Mimi stood near, ready to wipe. “We’re not in wartimes anymore, are we,” he said to Mimi in a low voice. “Except maybe we are, in ourselves, anyway. All I know is, I’m seeing a lot of new wounded hauling themselves about, still. Including me and John. And now, Julia’s girls. There’s got to be a better way.”

Mimi shrugged, feeling out of answers. “Perhaps you lot will figure it out, then,” she said. “Seems we don’t have all the answers, after all.” Handing him the towel to dry his hands, she touched his shoulder. “It’s very late, and I’m tired. I’m heading up to bed.”

“I’ll put the tumblers and the bottle back in place,” Paul offered.

Mimi thanked him and stepped away, only to turn back to him. "Oh, and Paul... I am very sorry about the bowl, this evening. John shouldn’t have done that, and then to run away… He needs to learn to control himself.”

“Not to worry, Mimi -” He headed toward the parlour.

“No, your father was kind enough to think of us, and I insist. We’ll make sure that it’s replaced. I’ll have John do it, himself.”

Paul laughed out loud and turn to peer at Mimi from the doorway. “Oh, woman, just leave poor John alone, will you? He was runnin’ because he couldn’t take any more heartache, but he never smashed the bleedin’ bowl.”

He laughed again, but kindly, not at Mimi, but at the whole sorry day. “It was meself threw the bowl, Mimi, and I was tryin’ to crash it right through the window. That wreckage is all mine, start to finish.”

Mimi stared, her jaw hanging down in a most undignified way.

“And now, you and my da will both be wondering just who's the bad influence on who, between me and John, yeah? Sleep tight, Mimi!”

 


	7. She Went Her Way Homeward With One Star Awake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m such a bastard,” John said quietly. 
> 
> Mimi nodded as though pleased with his discovery. “Yes. Sometimes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thought the funeral would end this, but then John started taking things out on Paul, and Paul freaked out at the gravesite, and then John realized what a bastard he could be (too, too often). It got too long to finish in one chapter, because there are still a few things these two boys need to say to each other. So...maybe one more chapter to go. Maybe two. But I hope only one. Also, I'm kind of falling in love with Mimi. Anyone else?

Paul had been awake for hours, uncomfortably watching the clock tick, minute by agonizing minute, while John slept and slept and never let Paul out of his grasp. He’d woken briefly when Paul returned to John’s bed, snuffling “ _Whereyoubeen_ ” and then immediately falling back into his hard slumber, pulling Paul against him and wrapping both arms around his partner as though he was a stuffed bear, or a security blanket.

That was alright with Paul. He didn’t mind John being clingy – if a lad couldn’t justifiably clutch his best mate to him in the hours before his mother’s funeral, then when could he? In fact, it was sort of nice when John ended up slipping Paul onto his back and resting his head soundly on his partner’s chest. It was sort of nice to be able to run his hands over John’s hair and press him a little closer to his chest.

Sort of nice -- consoling-like -- for both of them.

Only, being a security pillow meant he couldn’t flip and flop around the bed as he needed to, and so the hours were passing as slowly as treacle. What a funny thing, Paul considered, to be unable to rest because one had no outlet for one’s ever-present restlessness, this constant need his body seemed to have to be busy “doing” even at a time when all that needed “doing” was simply “being”, just existing in a different consciousness.

He couldn’t sleep because he couldn’t move, and his whole body felt like nerves firing but being given no release through action, like the feeling of arousal with no hand handy – a long and painful frustration that had him in a state of physical misery adding to the anguish he was already feeling.

Anguish, because Paul knew that even if he’d been free to bounce around the bed like a wind-up toy, he still wouldn’t have been able to sleep. The boy who always liked to be _doing_ , to be productive and to make himself useful, knew he was facing a day in which he could do nothing for John, a day when all his wiles would not be able to keep John from making a deep and willful – maybe necessary -- dive into the Empty.

It was killing Paul, this sense of helplessness. He’d been able to guess what John would experience through most of this ordeal, but a funeral? He had never been to a funeral! John had gone to his uncle’s funeral – at least some of it would be familiar to him – but Paul had no idea what to expect.

Just how maudlin would it be? _In the midst of life, we are in death_ , – he knew they’d say that. He thought Catholics might say it differently – _In the midst of death we are in life_ , but he didn’t really know. “The Church does not weep for death” he’d once read, or been told. Would a Church of England service be very different than a Catholic one?

Was Paul, as a Catholic, even allowed to attend a Protestant service? He didn’t know.

He didn’t care.

It didn’t matter. Nothing would keep him away from where John would be today, and if he was supposed to confess being in a Prod church later, well then, he’d add it to the list -- along with everything else he hadn’t bothered to confess since his mother had died.

And then, an open gravesite. Another place he’d never been. Another aspect of all this he’d never dealt with and so could offer nothing to John. Paul cursed under his breath once again at his father’s having deprived him of experiencing something so vitally important – something so unavoidable in life – and therefore having made him weak and ineffective when it came to helping a friend.

In truth, he knew his lack of experience would make him wary and emotionally vulnerable to everything before them, today. What if he couldn’t keep himself together? How would he be of any use to John, then?

And so, he lay awake, hour upon heavy hour, letting anxiety take hold, wondering if he should pray and thinking he really didn’t know how, but he tried. Only, his prayer ended up rising toward Mary McCartney, not to God. Was that blaspheme? Again, he didn’t know. He didn’t care. “Mum, help John, okay? Mother Mary, if you can help him get through this, do it, okay?”

Paul was still wide awake when he heard Mimi’s unexpected knock at the bedroom door, too wrapped up in John’s arms to quickly shift out of them before she came in, carrying a tray of tea and toast.

“I didn’t hear anyone moving about,” she said in a whisper as she placed the things down on John’s desk. “Thought to let John and you sleep as long as you could, but it’s time to get up, now. The funeral is in 90 minutes.” Clad in her dressing gown, she turned and looked squarely at Paul, her posture rigid, her hands gripped before her so tightly that her knuckles were white. Mimi’s eyes, Paul noted, were red, her cheeks blotchy, and she was working mightily to hold herself together in the face of the day. With her head, she motioned toward John, still whispering. “He slept all night?”

“Like a baby,” Paul said.

“Good. He needed it. And you?”

Paul shook his head. “No, I didn’t think you would. Replaying your triumphant bowl-smashing tantrum, were you?”

He smiled, but shook his head again. As Mimi made to exit, Paul silently reached his hand out to her. She stayed a moment by the bed, instinctively taking his fingertips as she looked down at her sleeping nephew and his wakeful friend. For the first time since the whole misbegotten week had begun, Mimi recognized uncertainty in Paul. This boy who had lately been nothing but decisive and bold in her company -- a budding master in gentle dominance, he was -- now wore a soft expression that spoke more of a plain and very youthful fear over anything like swagger. Suddenly she crouched down to match Paul’s eye-level.

“Lad, the other day you asked if you could give me a kiss. Today, I ask it back. May I?”

Paul’s eyes widened in surprise. His expression both puzzled and solemn, he nodded, and Mimi gently kissed his cheek. “You’ve been a very good friend, you terrible, insolent boy,” she said, her face flushing a little. “Get you both up now, while the tea is hot.” She released her hold on his hand, and closed the door behind her.

At last, Paul dared to move. He heaved himself about, tugging a bit in John’s hold, and faced his friend. “ _Oi_ , John, love,” he said in a low voice. “Time to wake up.”

“No,” John murmured. “Sleeping.”

“Yes. It’s morning. It’s bright out. Mimi has brought us tea.”

John’s long eyelashes fluttered a few times. “Tea? Mimi brought us tea?”

“Aye, practically breakfast in bed for her little prince. And toast and jam.”

John’s eyes opened wider. “Toast…”

Paul straggled out of John’s grasp, nearly falling out of the bed before he got a leg to the floor. He brought the heaping tea tray over as John raised himself, sitting cross-legged.

“What’s it the posh people say when they pour tea?” Paul was nearly about to say, “I’ll be ‘mother’” when he stopped himself realizing it was probably the worst thing he could do. Lack of sleep was clearly going to trip him up, today, if he didn’t watch it.

Luckily John, too sleep-stupid to catch any of that, just sat there blinking like an owl and trying to bring his eyes and brain into focus while Paul poured tea.

John watched in silence while his mate slathered a bit of butter onto toast and then asked John if he preferred strawberry jam or marmalade?  

“I can do it, Macca, I’m not helpless, you know,” he said sharply.

“You’re not,” Paul agreed, leaving John to it while he fixed his own cuppa. “Just over-managing, I am.”

“You can do that McCharmly ‘handling’ bit with Mimi, and with my blessing, but not with me? Alright?”

Paul nodded and went for a piece of toast. Apparently, John was well-rested enough to afford to be angry, today. And Paul was already operating at a deficit. Yeah, it was going to be a rough one. Opening a napkin he discovered four chocolates had been hidden beneath, two for each of them, and gave a little smile in John’s direction.

“Look, Mimi’s given us chocolates,” he said.

John gave them a look of disgust as he sipped the hot brew.

“What’s the barmy old girl thinkin’ with that? A celebration? We’re not havin’ a bleedin’ tea party, today, are we?”

“’Chocolate gives us _heart_ ’,” Paul quoted Mimi without John’s knowing.

“And you’re loony as she is, Macca, if you think that. ‘ _Chocolate is a cad and a coward_ ,’” Lennon recited. “ _Chocolate is a vulgar beast…_ ”

Paul sighed and downed his tea, already needing a break. His nerves feeling frayed, he pushed back a little. “ _Cocoa_ , he corrected. ‘ _Cocoa_ is a cad and a coward. _Cocoa_ is a vulgar beast.’ If you’re going to call me crazy at least get your quote right. And if you’re goin’ to badmouth chocolate, ya sod, I’m takin’ the shower first,” he added, pushing off the bed and taking his chocolates with him.

***

Had he not been so bone-tired, Paul would have been amused by an absurd battle-of-wills enacted by John and Mimi as they anxiously awaited the appointed hour. Mimi reminded John to put on his tie, John put it over his collar, but did not tie it. Mimi knotted the tie and settled it tightly. John immediately tugged it down and undid the buttons at his neck. Mimi brushed down his suit jacket. John deliberately dropped cigarette ash on it. She straightened his tie. He lowered it.

It went on like that. John was simply on auto-pilot, resisting, mostly because it was the only thing he could do, and because it came so naturally to him. His whole attitude was that of a teenager wanting no part of what he was about to confront, and therefore doing his level-best to both distract from the purpose at hand and slow down an engagement with what could not be avoided. His shoulders were hitched high with tension, his fists banging against each other, or forcefully tapping the staircase railing, or the doorjamb. What he wanted more than anything was to punch something, even as he hand already ached, even as he blanched every time he saw the shiner on Paul’s face.

It was the guilt-inducing bruise that settled it. Having watched Mimi begin to sag with the effort of getting John together, Paul finally walked over. He stood directly before John and placed both hands upon his partner’s shoulders until John settled down, glaring at him, but no longer fidgeting.

John’s expression promised chaos if Paul tried to “handle” him. Paul’s big eyes unblinkingly challenged, “do your worst” -- as though he would tolerate one black eye, but not two, from his best mate. John seemed to get the message. He shoved his clenched hands into his trouser pockets and let Paul have his way, his eyes snapping fury as Paul wordlessly rebuttoned John’s shirt and then worked up his tie, lifting the Windsor knot a bit to straighten the folds beneath, so it would lay properly, and then placing John's collar just so.

 _Fussing_ , as usual.

 _You’re worth the fuss_ … John recalled, and he looked shame-facedly away.

“There, now,” Paul said, repeating the very words John had said to him after bathing Paul's bruise the night before. It all felt very familiar, suddenly – warm and reassuring. They shared the memory, and sighed, shoulders going down and fists relaxing. John didn't touch his tie, again.

***

The funeral was everything Paul feared it would be. There was the booming intensity of the pipe organ which seemed to drown the whole church in waves of solemn grief as a dirge played in the procession. The casket was brought forward and laid upon a bier and behind it walked Julia’s sisters and their spouses, but not, Paul noted bitterly, her daughters. John walked with Mimi, and it was difficult to say who was upholding whom, but if Paul had to guess, Mimi seemed the stronger.

And then the service began, and Paul – seated a dozen rows back, apart from the family and closest relations – felt the full weight of his helplessness. _In the midst of life, we are in death_ \-- _Media vita in morte sumus_ – Paul thought, and it grieved his heart to watch John’s auburn hair sink out of sight in the pew so far away from his.

John spent the whole of the funeral with his head in Mimi’s lap, unable to watch, unable to take single morsel of consolation from a liturgy promising that death was not an end, but an entry into something eternal. Unverifiable promises meant nothing to the boy in his grief. They didn’t even register. His sobs were very quiet, but they rang in Paul’s ears as he sat alone in his pew, his head bowed, unable to do a thing about what John was feeling, or offer so much as an encouraging look. He closed his eyes and uttered his private prayer, once more. “Mum…help him if you can…”

It all felt so futile, even that prayer.

As they exited the funeral, things only became more awkward for Paul, who had no place among the family or neighbors and found himself walking alone toward Allerton Cemetery, hands in his pockets and feeling a bit like an alien until he felt someone clap an arm about his shoulders. Georgie.

“Hey, mate. Saw you in church but I got there late, so stayed in the back, like. Woulda sat with you.”

“Woulda been welcome,” Paul said. “So, now I know I hate funerals.”

“It was a bad one, yeah,” George agreed. “Watchin’ John just slip away from it like that, disappearing from view. How is he?”

“Dunno. Haven’t spoken with him, have I? He’s, you know, with his family.”

“Better off with his friends, I think.”

Paul shrugged.

“I mean, you can’t give a shiner to an auntie or an uncle and get away with it.”

Paul chuckled, picking up his step so as not to get too far away from the procession. As they walked in silence, Paul lit a ciggie and shared it with George, trying to conserve his dwindling supply in hopes of making it through the day.

They were some of the last to make it to Julia’s graveside before the prayers of burial began, and while George made his way over to where a few bandmates had gathered, Paul held back, not sure whether he wanted to draw any nearer. From where he was, he could see Julia’s casket suspended over a rectangle of opened earth and his head began to swim with unwelcome, downright discomfiting thoughts: Julia’s casket, hovering above something all empty. Her own inert molecules -- all coldness because they were all empty, too – were all that could fill it.

Julia’s soul-departed body, able to do nothing but decay and become so much more of what was empty -- that empty shell of John's mother -- was the thing meant to fill the nothingness of her grave, as it first filled an empty box.

Empty, upon empty, upon empty. Nothing filling up nothing and then becoming more nothing. Layers upon layers of nothing. In the end, it was all Empty.

What was being done here, he asked himself. Who is this all for? All of this…worshiping the Empty. Why are we giving anything of ourselves to all of this Empty? Who does this save?

He hadn’t realized he was shaking until he felt someone lightly taking his arm. It was one of John’s cousins – Dave? He couldn’t remember. “I’m to bring you up front.” The lad said into his ear. “Mimi wants you.”

Paul allowed himself to be led forward, where he was quickly seated next to John. Mimi leaned past John and gave Paul very direct nod, making it clear she wanted him there, close to her nephew.

Well, alright if Mimi wanted it, but if he’d had his druthers, Paul would have preferred to stay behind, perhaps even to head back to Mendips, where he could do something useful like set out the sandwiches or put up some tea. He could do nothing for John, here, and at the moment he felt anything would be better than what was before his eyes, and in his head.

As prayers and readings were intoned, Paul could feel a hard look  upon him, and turned his head to meet John’s intense gaze. Probably at Mimi’s urging, he was wearing his glasses, and for once Paul – who liked the look on John – wished she hadn’t nagged him into it. The glasses lent John an air of gravity that suited the day but also helped him to see everything when, just this one time, he might have been better off keeping things a bit out of focus. Wearing his glasses, Paul knew John could see details that might best go unremembered -- the polished grain of the wooden box in which his mother lay, the rich dark (no, utterly black) tones of the dirt heaped just nearby, ready to be shoveled over her, so dark, so black. He could peer into the grave and see the clods of earth, and the hard, sharp gravel, and the pebbles and the deep and knotty roots that would surround his mother, forever, forever.

But right now, John was looking at him and the heavy frames made him look grim and rather disapproving, and the dense lenses made his eyes look so huge they brought a distortion to his expression. Perhaps John’s eyes only looked sad, but through his glasses they were showing as a sort of burning lunacy of grief. Behind the lenses, John’s expression seemed so wild, Paul wondered if he even recognized him.

He bit his lip, looking away until he felt John nudge him, setting his knee against Paul’s. When he looked back, John was still staring, his expression still completely foreign and unreadable to Paul, who thought perhaps John would be shocked to know Paul’s own thoughts in the moment, about all the nothing.

And so, they sat next to each other, two confused and somewhat terrified boys, each with no sense of what the other was thinking. A brand new experience for them.

John leaned close to Paul’s ear, speaking under the prayer responses, “Were you there?”

Paul nodded. “Back a bit. Didn’t want to intrude on your family.”

The older boy discreetly moved his leg until they were thigh to thigh, and then leaned in again, until their shoulders were touching, and then their heads, just grazing. “Feel like I’m gonna die, Macca,” John said in a hollow voice.

Paul bit his lip and John could feel him nodding. “Aye, you do, I know. But John…” he brought his head closer. “Please live.”

“ _Why?_ ”

The question was so desolate. A handful of dust thrown into an empty grave, with no justifiable reason to be anywhere else.

“Because I’m selfish and I need you. And Mimi is selfish and she needs you.”

At his bluntness, Paul felt John collapse into himself, bending over double as his hands flew up to his face, knocking his glasses askew. Paul and Mimi immediately shared a look over John’s trembling form, and both of their hands went to him. Mimi's to trace small consoling circles upon her nephew’s back, as she had throughout the funeral. Paul's to keep him from hitting the ground. The younger boy leaned forward, keeping a tight hand on John’s shoulder while he murmured closely, “There, Johnny. I’ve got you. You’re alright, I've got you.”

He took the opportunity to rescue John’s glasses before they fell, and slipped them into his own jacket pocket. Better. That would be better, he thought, although from that point on, John’s gaze seemed so unfocused and his thoughts so far away, perhaps the glasses wouldn't matter anyroad.

When prayers were over, turns were taken as flowers or bits of dirt were thrown after Julia’s casket, now lowered into her grave. “Dust unto dust” said the priest. _Empty into empty_ , thought Paul, and John once more disappeared into Mimi’s grasp, his face buried in her neck, unable to watch as shovels slid into dirt with a sharp sounding _shick-ah_ , and then threw it heavily upon the wood with a tumbling sound, like a descending drum fill, until the box containing the emptiness of Julia was all covered, and then the sound became a steady rhythm of _shick-ah_ , and then a tumble, _shick-ah_ , and a tumble, _shick-ah_ and a tumbling down, but now muted as dirt leveled against dirt, and the outside pile diminished while the inside pile grew.

Paul found himself watching the birds as they swooped about amid the trees and bushes. The distraction made the grisly noise of burial fade into the background of his awareness, where they began to sound like percussion instrumentation, propelling forward an unresolvable melody of loss.  _Shick-ah_. _Bum de dah bum de dah bum bum bum_ , over and over until finally the empty grave was full of its nothing, and the only sound remaining was the caw of blackbirds, the sound of a random sob, and the backs of shovels roughly tamping down the reality of the day: _To dust thou wilt return._ Steel dirt blades really slamming that message home – _nothing, nothing,_ _slap, slap, clatter, bang_.

A horrible sound of finality, with nothing of hope about it – a sound so ugly Paul believed it would haunt him, and likely John, too. It shouldn’t be the last thing they heard in this terrible, beautiful place, he decided.

And so, as the gravediggers stood a respectful moment before tipping their hats and making away – the cue for others to take their leave -- Paul stood next to John, who was finally able to look down, squinting at Julia’s grave. Making no effort to hide it – because who could possibly care in this moment – he took hold of John’s hand. When John didn’t pull away, Paul began to sing.

She stepped away from me

And she moved through the Fair

And fondly I watched her

Move here and move there

And she went her way homeward

With one star awake

As the swans in the evening

Move over the lake

And she smiled as she passed me

With her goods and her gear

And that was the last

That I saw of my dear.

As she went her way homeward

With one star awake

As the swans in the evening

Move over the lake

 

 ***

Two hours or so into the modest reception offered at Mendips (and well-attended by those badly in need of tea and biscuits and sandwiches and relieved chatter), a beer-breathing John Lennon found Mimi in the back garden, where she was taking a minute for herself, smoking as she looked at a drooping rose bush. She looked very tense, and very, very tired. 

“How much longer before we can cast them out from among our midst, Mimi,” he asked her with a biblical sort of indignation. “It feels like the day can’t end, the page can’t turn, until they go.” 

“They’re mostly family, John, and good friends. You don’t cast them out. You make more sandwiches and pass around the bottle, and when everyone is full and a little drunk, they will begin to peter out, especially since we do not own a piano, thank God. In fact,” she threw her cigarette and headed toward the house, “we should probably see if more food is needed.” 

“Ah, then, throw Macca at them. Tell him to make them scrambled eggs and let him _smile_ them to death. He’ll efficiently terrify them and send them scurrying.” 

“Paul’s asleep. Perhaps you and I will do egg and cress or some cucumber. You can cut off the crusts.”

 “I’ll be damned if I will," John said, sounding like an affronted prince. "I’d rather they just go home. And what do you mean Paul’s asleep? I thought the whole point of him being here was to help?” 

“He’s been a very great help, John, as you well know. But he is also tired. He never slept last night.” 

“Bollocks,” John pronounced. “He fell asleep before I did.” 

“Well, he never stayed asleep. I was up with Paul at four in the morning, and getting quite a scolding from him about…well…everything.” Mimi’s mouth gave a little tic upward, for just a moment. “My entire generation, morality, gutters, and the shame of Liverpool society. Now I think on it, it's astonishing I managed any further sleep at all. He was quite relentless.” 

“Well, when did he go up?” John asked, still annoyed. 

“I can’t be certain,” Mimi said, “but I think it was around the third time you called him a poncy beggar who needed to be loved, and suggested that he was trying to be ‘the better nephew,’ whatever you could mean by that, since he is not family.” 

“I never said that,” John frowned. 

“Of course, you did, John. You launched your acid tongue against Paul as soon as we headed home, and brought one burn after another against the poor lad while he was helping out in the kitchen and running to the shop for more bread and mustard. Oh, wait,” she turned to John. “You might have missed that, as you were drinking beer and holing up with your friends. Which is fine,” she added hurriedly. “It’s all you were meant to do. But I think Paul just needed a break, and I wouldn’t begrudge it him. Particularly not after your friend Pete asked about the song he’d sung by Julia’s graveside, and you said he’d only done it because he couldn’t stand not being the center of attention for a few hours. That he was trying to make Julia's funeral all about himself.” 

John was silent for a beat. He suddenly remembered that moment, and the disappointed look Paul had thrown before shaking his head and walking away.

That had probably been the line. The line John was so adept at crossing. The line he seemed so often to race toward with hands outstretched. The line that wore Paul down and made him seek out a distance from John -- one found in sleep, which was as far away as Paul could get from him without actually leaving. 

“I did say that.” John admitted, his head hanging from a full weight of regret for his uncalled-for, cruel remarks. Why was he such an ass?

“You did say it, all of it, indeed. Very ungenerous, John. Especially because I believe he sang when he did -- and so beautifully -- entirely for your sake. Perhaps for himself too, and maybe a little for me. But mostly for you.” 

John knew she was right. Of course, the song was for him. He could still feel the press of Macca’s hand, laced in his, holding tight as he pealed out a tribute over Julia’s grave, and lovelier than any church bells it was. His voice had been powerfully open and free, sounding just a little husky, like honey tinged with smoke – probably because he hadn’t slept? – but retaining all the natural and full beauty of his high baritone as it came through on a lovely air John had never heard before... _and she went her way homeward, with one star awake…_

Of course, the song was meant for John. Of course. _Entirely_ for him. 

“I’m such a bastard,” John said quietly. 

Mimi nodded as though pleased with his discovery. “Yes. Sometimes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "She Moved Through the Fair" is a traditional Irish song sometimes used for funerals.


	8. Truth is Always a Terrible Beauty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Everyone would leave him in the end": that was John’s song of himself. He not only believed it, he did all he could to fulfill the prophecy, one cruel remark, one loyalty test, one dare against forgiveness at a time.
> 
> Paul understood all of that. He also knew that his nature being what it was – more placating and peace-seeking than pugilistic -- he would always be Best Boy in the Lennon School of Belting Out. First Punching Bag, with Honors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well...this is still not the end. I have no freaking idea when this story is going to end. It might have to keep going until these two idiots finally kiss. They're getting close to it, but it's the wrong time -- it would do more harm than good this close to Julia's funeral. John had a lot of making up to do in this chapter and Paul had to get a little introspective and ask himself why he was so ready to put up with John's shit, all the time. But John wasn't going to be able to say what he needed to say -- what absolutely needed to be said at this point -- until Paul let him off the hook by saying "Tell me a story." John's a natural storyteller.

Paul awoke to the sound of music. John was at the bedroom window, gazing at the street and the open sky while gently picking at the strings of his guitar – a random few notes, a soft chord progression in a minor key. One string was slightly out of tune, making everything sound a little off -- a little discordant, as the day itself had been.

The boy in the bed was content to keep his eyes closed as he simply listened, appreciating how far John had come from the days when he was unsure of how to even tune his instrument, and was familiar only with banjo chords, taught to him by Julia.

Really, Paul thought, John was amazingly sharp to pick up so much, so quickly.

Still, admiration aside, Paul wasn’t ready to engage with him at the moment, or tempt a renewal of the non-stop verbal cruelties the sorrows of the day had brought forth from John, all of them seemingly intended to land exclusively on Paul.

It was just “John being John”, Paul knew that. John, answering the perceived stroke of a lash with a lashing-out of his own, tending to his open wounds by wounding another in a futile attempt to make the tally sheet of his life (packed snugly in that chip on his shoulder), somehow balance out.  It was “just John’s way” to belt out against whoever would tolerate the most abuse before feeling compelled to punch back in a desperate attempt to affirm one’s self-respect. The minute one did, one would – in John’s mind --  prove his ongoing thesis that no one loved him, that none could be trusted to stay with him.

 _Everyone would leave him in the end:_ that was John’s song of himself. He not only believed it, he did all he could to fulfill the prophecy, one cruel remark, one loyalty test, one dare against forgiveness at a time.

Paul understood all of that. He also knew that his nature being what it was – more placating and peace-seeking than pugilistic -- he would always be Best Boy in the Lennon School of Belting Out. First Punching Bag, with Honors.

It wasn’t even John’s caustic tongue that kept him lying still in the bed as the music played. Paul was adept in rolling his eyes at John’s absurd, fantastic accusations -- which rarely had truck with any reality beyond his own momentary panic and paranoia. And the suspicious motives John would sometimes assign to someone who had merely done something nice for him said too much about John, really – and none of it good -- to ever say much about anyone else.

In general, those swipes didn’t lay a glove on Paul.

It wasn’t even the selectivity of the words John used. _Poncy_ , for instance. Not even original. Paul had heard it all his life. Hell, even his father had said as much and more – and worse – during the hellish days of his grief-drinking.

So, no, being called a praise-seeking poof by John seemed weak sauce to Paul, and the “Best Nephew” accusation had actually amused him.

None of that had left Paul feeling disturbed and out of humor with his friend. Given the trauma of burying his mother, anyone who knew John would think he’d barely been trying, today.

What was it then, that kept him frozen in position, eyes closed, deliberately regulating his breath, in order to avoid facing John? If not his verbal bullying, then what?

Paul wondered at his own willingness to take what John dished out, only rarely feeling the need to push back, or even expect an apology. Was there something wrong with him? Was he setting himself up to be a doormat? Who could respect that? He didn’t put up with such nonsense from anyone else. He might not be as fast with his fists as some, but he’d never had a problem telling anyone except his father where the limits were, and where to get off.

And yet, with John…

Perhaps it was only that he really _got_ John, like no one else – understood the simple, uncomplicated fear that lay beneath all of his scorn and aggression. Fear that he didn’t matter, that he was unlovable, that even as a tender five year-old he was worth only walking away from. It was a fear that Julia and Alfie had soundly cemented him, in all of their selfish ways. Probably because they were ruled by some sort of fear, too, Paul mused. Because what else could explain putting their own needs to serve themselves over the needs of their adorable little boy?

Maybe he stayed with John, and tolerated his abuse, because on some level he liked seeing it in John – as though he could live out his own anger, his own sometimes bitter feelings, vicariously through John’s war with the world, and therefore remain level and pleasant, himself.

If that were so, perhaps it worked both ways, Paul considered. Maybe his steady, more optimistic presence ended up balancing John out, letting him live a bit vicariously in Paul, too, in order to find a little peace.

That might be the answer, or one answer, to the question that had repeated itself as Paul had fallen asleep, and was still on his mind, and nearly on his tongue, as he awoke. John was in pain, so he dealt pain. And he dealt it to Paul, because… he trusted him? Or because every new scary thing required a new test for the Best Boy?

Really, he had no idea why he stood for it, but Paul knew he couldn’t help it. Something about John, from the very day they met, had completed something in Paul, had answered something very fundamental inside him, in the same way some people encounter religion and within it find the answers to all of their longings and losses and unanswered questions, and become willing to suffer for it – to endure a great deal in order to keep it with them.

It was just like that. Paul was willing to stand everything with John, and withstand everything from him, and if it cost him a little bit, sometimes, to do that, well…how bad could it get, yeah?

They’d have to think about this, someday, talk about the nature of whatever this was between them, before it became more complicated and threatened to become something that finally could have no balance to it, at all. Maybe even take some time apart, they should, to figure it out.

But they couldn’t have that talk today. Not today, obviously. The right day would present itself, Paul thought, and they’d talk, and they’d define some boundaries and it would all be fine, he knew it. Everything would work out fine. They were best mates, after all.

***

The volume of John’s playing had increased as he moved closer to the bed. He sat at his desk chair, across from Paul, studying him in sleep. He’d no wish to awaken him earlier, but now John was feeling a bit lonely, and a bit broody. Mimi and her sisters were putting the house back in order and the lads from the band and from school had all left, and he was discovering that he missed his friend’s company. Missed his annoying sass, and his more annoying kindness, and that fixed, solid way he had that made John just…settle down, yeah?

How did Macca do that? Like this morning, when he’d stood John still and just _looked_ at him, that way he did, while fixing the damage to his collar and his tie. Paul had touched him, and given him that look, and John didn’t feel the need to undo his tie anymore.

So, he was going to wake Paul up, because he missed him. Mostly, he missed his ridiculous eyes and the light that seemed to continually emanate from them. John loved that light. It almost seemed supernatural to him, like evidence of an actual, living, soul residing inside – reassuring proof that human beings possessed souls. Or at least some of them did, and Paul was one of them. The rest of the world seemed to walk around like zombies, to John’s thinking, their eyes dead, showing nothing alive inside of them, just blankness, upon dullness, upon boringness, and the rest was silence.

But Paul was alive. He had a soul, and you see it in him -- could hear it in his playing, and in his singing – no one could watch him on stage and not see how intensely animated Paul was when his body and spirit fused within the music. He became an arc of human electricity or magnetism, then, and John couldn’t take his eyes off of him in those moments, because he was fucking incandescent.

But those eyes. They just radiated light, all the time. Even when he was quietly thinking, even when his eyes were half closed and nearing sleep, John could see Paul’s light shining out to him, gold-flecked amid all the dark, and it showed John everything.

How funny, he thought, that Paul – the rough and mild McCartney, who tried so hard to be inscrutable, to share nothing of his private self with anyone uninvited – exposed himself so fully, at least to John, and so unstoppably, by the light of his eyes.

John wanted to have that light with him now, and trained only on him. Needed to see it.

He’d originally thought of waking Paul up with a loud chord and blast of Chuck Berry, but that idea faded away as John watched Paul sleeping. He’d been such an unspeakable bastard to him, today, and he didn’t know why. Almost daren’t ask himself why, but he knew he needed to.

Because he had to stop it. He had to become a better man than he was. Mimi had been perfectly right to call him “ungenerous” because John had been all that and more toward Paul, all day.

Ungenerous…he’d been downright savage, particularly about the song. He could hear Paul’s voice even now, lifted up before his mother’s fresh grave. If he was being honest, he’d not been able to stop hearing it and it was a monstrous and terrible beauty, that song -- unendurable. Out of the vast interior songbook Paul carried within at all times, he’d pulled something from himself that worked a true brutality on John. The melody was haunting and lonely; the words evoked every insight John had ever gleaned of Julia – that she was something mysterious and unattainable and full of promise unfulfilled, and always, always, somehow walking away, even when she was present.

_Fondly I watched her move here, and move there…_

No lyrics could have been more perfectly apt. Julia had been herself a terrible beauty, and Paul had matched verse and voice to her so perfectly – right down to his husky undertone, which seemed so full of lamenting, of swallowed-back tears – like a fucking savant. Like a genius sent to torture John only to soothe, and then torture some more.

Hearing it all again and again, like a jukebox record on perpetual play throughout the day, John had found himself wanting some unnamable outlet of release – wanting to beat Paul to a pulp or kiss him into silence either act being, in the end, a means of finding some quiet space, some respite where everything finally felt safe.

And both of those instincts _(the punch, the bruise, kissed)_ , had left him shaken.

So had the idea of John’s unending mouth finally driving Paul to seek an escape from him, even if only in sleep.

He didn’t want Paul away from him. He never would want that. It was fucking unthinkable. John would never want to drive Paul away simply because he couldn’t control his tongue. Especially since he almost never meant what he said when he was giving into his madness or, as sometimes was the case, simply entertaining himself of a moment.

Because sometimes that’s all the verbal thrusts and parries were for John – a bit of diversion – a kind of mental masturbation, where a few flicks of his sharp tongue became the intellectual equivalent of a toss-off meant only to dull his edges and raise a fuzzy bit of release amid the bloodless hits.

Paul certainly deserved better of him, though, better than that.

So, John would try to do _better_. If the alternative was to risk losing his Macca, or of some distance being put between them – which he would not be able to stand -- he would try to be good. To be better.

He needed Paul. Needed his light.

Setting aside his guitar, John climbed over him now, to his usual spot against the wall. He was atop the covers which he knew would quickly make Paul feel crowded and entrapped -- would make him squirm and moan until he opened his eyes. John had never known such a restless sleeper, one who needed such a sense of air and space all around him, in order to find his slumber.  

“Macca,” he said softly. “Macca, love, wake up. You’re sleepin’ the day away.”

Paul’s eyelashes fluttered as he pulled himself awake, surprised that he’d actually fallen back to sleep to the sound of John’s imperfectly tuned guitar.

“Whasit,” he breathed.

“Wake up, son. I miss you.”

Paul snorted, turning his back to his friend and trying to pull the covers over himself – impossible thanks to John’s weight.

“What’re you doin’?” Paul complained. “I’m getting’ cold.”

“Yer fully in your jeans and jumper and under a sheet, you. How cold can you be?”

“There’s a bad chill in here. Fuckin’ icy. And it’s more than the weather, ass.”

“I’ll help make you warm, then, if you’ll only give me your eyes instead of the back of your head.” John lifted himself, freeing up valuable areas of blanket and adjusting them over Paul, who rolled his eyes but kept his part of the bargain, turning about as John finally laid his head on the pillow they shared.

“That’s better,” John sighted. He slipped one arm over Paul, and the other under the pillow to get comfortable. “I never know how to situate meself with you in such a small bed, especially since you get crowded and hate bein’ breathed on.”

“Aye, that’s why it’s better with my back to you,” Paul made as though to turn again, and John stayed him with his arm.

“Nay, you’re not sleeping now. I need you to be awake, Macca. Please? Macca, _please_?”

Paul heard the real entreaty behind John’s plea and stopped fidgeting, fixing his partner with a look as intentionally blank as he could make it.

“Hi,” John breathed tentatively, after a beat.

“Hi.” It came out like a question.

John scanned Paul’s face as though he hadn’t seen him in years, his look wandering over the boy’s lips, then up to his eyes, and back down. He raised his hand to push Paul’s sleep-demolished front curls back off his forehead.

“There you are, looking like yourself again,” John murmured, finally looking directly into Paul’s eyes and finding his light. He wasn’t even aware that he was sighing.

“There you are,” Paul answered, “looking like hell.”

“Looking like meself again, then,” John gave a rueful smile, tilting his head until Paul couldn’t resist giving a little smile back, no more aware of sighing than John was.

They stayed like that, motionless for long minutes, simply smiling as they held the gaze, eye-to-eye, as though there were no words needing to be said.

But words were needed, and John the wordsmith knew it – knew that a few very specific, very particular words needed saying to Paul, and from his own wicked mouth.

“Macca,” he started on a croak.

Paul raised one of those perfectly arched, _poncy_ eyebrows that had always gotten him in so much trouble.

“Paul,” John tried again. “I…we have to talk.”

The other eyebrow went up, but his partner remained silent. The little bastard wasn’t going to make it easy for him, John realized, and he laughed at himself, because it shouldn’t be easy, should it?

“Look, Macca…I just want to tell you something.”

“Well, I’m listening, Lennon, but so far you’re as boring as dammit, to me.”

“Well…this is hard to do.”

“What’s hard to do, John, be a human being? Say a good word, be a little bit generous, if the moment stands it?”

Generous. That word again. No, he had been _ungenerous,_ Mimi said. No more excuses, he had to do better. But he hadn’t lied. This really was hard to do. He gave a tug on Paul’s arm, raising his hand above the covers and clutching at it, like a lifeline.

“Is it okay? If I hold your hand?”

“If you need to,” Paul said warily, still willing to bust John’s chops a bit. “But give it back, then.”

“I will,” John smiled at him again. “Thank you.”

Wherever he’d meant to go, John found himself stalled again as he noticed the shiner near Paul’s eye and winced at his earlier thought _(the punch, the bruise, kissed...)._ All he could feel in the moment was self-doubt. He could see Paul’s expression growing thoughtful as he licked his dry lips and looked steady on at John.

“Johnny,” Paul said, holding his gaze, “Just tell me a story.”

John lowered his eyes. “I can’t. I don’t know any good ones.”

“Tell me a bad one, then. I'm trying to let you off the hook, but I need to hear a story from you, Johnny. Either way. I need you to tell me something.”

Lennon gave a little gasp. Paul had never admitted to needing anything from John. Not anything. Ever. He had to do it.

“Okay…” he closed his eyes and began. “Once upon a time…”

_“When?”_

“A long, long time ago that happened forever and today.”

“Okay.” Paul tilted John’s chin up, until their eyes were level.  "Look at me, John.”

John opened his eyes and stared into Paul’s.

"It's not a confessional," Paul said softly, the smallest of smiles on his face, meant to encourage him. "It's just _story-time_ , okay?"

Lennon took a deep breath and nodded. 

“There were two princes,” he started again.

“Where?”

“In a rainy seaport named Dillyfool, where sugar grew into peonies and all the girls were fast, and all the lads played in bands with music they’d learned, coming from a distant land.”

“What’s the name of the distant land?”

“Ameri-comeandgo. A filthy place full of masturbating strangers who would whack off and then go on their way.”

Paul chuckled. “Continue.”

“So, these two princes became friends.”

“What were their names?”

John sighed, furrowing his brow. “The older one was called Jawn, and the younger one was called Pol.”

Paul wrinkled his nose. “I don’t like those names.”

“Well, then you shouldn’t call me Jawn, _Pol_ ,” John rapped him lightly on the cheek, “but you do, so shaddup and let me tell the story.”  

“Did the princes fight over control of Dillyfool?” Paul was being as intrusive and distracting as a five year-old, and wholly on purpose.

“No. The princes were very good friends, who each understood how important the other prince was to the city –”

“This is boring,” Paul announced. “I’m bored now.”

“To the city, and to all the music,” John persevered. “In fact, Dillypool only became alive with music when the two princes got together, and then everyone wanted to be like them.”

“Oh, I like this part.”

“Yer a spoilt brat and I should fan your arse. So, _anyway_ , one day, the older prince --”

“Jawn?”

“What, love?”

“No, I mean, Prince Jawn?”

John smiled at Paul and shook his head. “You know, nobody says my name the way you do. Nobody. I don’t know what it is…”

“Ugh, the older prince sounds a right ponce, then. Sure his name isn’t Nancy?”

John put his hand over Paul’s mouth and looked him in the eye, again.

“I should have mentioned that the younger prince had some affliction that made him talk nonsense all the time – ew! You licked my palm! That’s disgusting.”

“This story sucks. Get to the part where the younger prince tames the Ogre.”

“Who the hell is the Ogre?”

“The great and powerful Ogre Me-Mumps of Mendips Cave.”

“Oh, so you’ve heard this story already, eh? I needn't tell it?”

“No, I’ll be good. Tell me the story, _John_.”

Paul watched as John inhaled deeply, again unable to continue, but this time because he was honestly laughing. He’d not looked this happily diverted since they’d recorded their first single record, just days before Julia’s death.

Paul’s smile grew wide, for watching him.

“Alright, well…the older prince suffered a great wound, one that looked to kill him. And he was also trapped in the carpeted bowels of Mendips Cave, with the Ogre Me-Mumps, who scolded him to get better and eat a sandwich and sit up straight, even though he couldn’t do any of that because he was spillin’ his guts, and if he sat up straight they’d fall all over the floor and then the Ogre would lose her shit.”

“Guts and lost shit on the floor. This is getting good.”

“But the younger prince came to his rescue. He tamed the Me-Mumps and started healing the older prince.”

“How?”

“With scrambled eggs and a fresh mouth and whiskey and sugar peonies.”

“That’s boring, then what?”

“Then the younger prince threw rice pudding at the memory of his father, the Rotten King of Cotton, and he helped the older prince get through some very bad days, even though it meant he got a black eye --”

“Cor, this younger prince sounds like a warrior!” Paul gasped.

John took the opportunity to look directly into his eyes, into that light. “Too fucking right. Prince Pol was every bit a warrior. Even though he carried his own scars, carried his own hurts for a long time. He tamed the Ogre Me-Mumps, then he stood a watch while the older prince fell apart at the seams, and he let no one near. And he made him get dressed, too, on the hardest of the hard days, and stay dressed.”

Paul was biting his lip, his eyes sparkling, “Christ, and this older prince sounds like a fucking handful. Even wounded.”

“He was. In fact, it was the being so badly wounded made him such a pain in the arse. Took him outside of himself, you know, until his mind was dinlin’ and just felt like he wanted to die.”

“Well, that would be very wrong -- and tragic,” Paul said, suddenly turning serious and clutching John’s hand to his chest. “That would only wound everyone who loved him. It would wound the younger prince, too – make him feel as awful and desolate as John felt himself, right? Until he wanted to die, too?” Paul took John’s hand in both of his. “John wouldn’t want that. _Right_?”

John pulled his head back as though to study Paul more intently, his almond shaped eyes narrowing with the effort. All he could see were those dark eyes, the thick lashes black as night but providing no filter from the light. John felt something huge well up in his chest, a stirring he thought he'd imagined feeling once or twice before, but was now arrived in full force, completely real, and all for Paul. And he didn’t know what to do with it.

So, he let out a long breath. “You’re very right. John – _Prince Jawn_ \-- would never want that.”

Paul breathed out, too. “Good,” he nodded, holding John’s look. “That’s good to hear. So, what happened next, on that worst day from forever and today?”

John took Paul’s hand back into both of his, rubbing his callused thumbs over the younger boy’s knuckles. “Give me your other hand,” he said. “I need them both to finish the story.”

Paul watched John struggle to finish, his heart full of empathy, his eyes full of what John could not then name.

John had put both of his partner’s hands together, and now he was running his fingers over them, twisting and tugging at them, as though trying to pull his own words forward through the connection. Finally, he looked up again and met Paul’s eyes.

“On the hardest day, the older prince felt like he had been split into two and he wanted to die. And then the younger prince stood up at the place John wanted to die – right at that place, to make it sacred and too holy for any more bad things to happen there -- and he raised his voice in song. And it was a magic song, a beautiful, terrible song, because it was true. And truth is always a terrible beauty.”

Paul was holding his breath.  

“And the magic of the song was increased by the way the younger prince sang it, with a voice like velvet and smoke. It made the song rise like incense to heaven, and it came back so powerful that it could be used in many ways -- as a deadly weapon, or as healing remedy -- depending on who wielded it and who it was intended for, and whether that person wanted death or life.”

“How was it used, then? How was it taken?” Paul breathed, his eyes staring deeply into John’s.

“Well, that’s the thing. When the older prince heard the song, it pierced his heart, and made him feel weaker than ever, as though he could disappear in the face of too much truth, too much beauty. It made him angry at the younger prince, because he wanted to think he was stronger than he was, that he could be fine all on his own, but now he was afraid he really would die. And so, he struck out at Pol, and sliced him on old scars and made some new ones, until the younger prince wanted to strike back, but he didn’t.”

“Why _didn’t_ he?” Paul tilted his head.

“Because he is a true warrior. And true warriors always know when to cry ‘battle’ and when to keep a truce, Paul.” John’s eyes began to blur with tears.

“But…you said _intention_ mattered. If the younger prince meant good by the song, wouldn’t the remedy work on him?”

“I said whoever it was used on had to know whether he wanted death or life.”

“Well,” Paul swallowed. “Did he figure it out finally, the older prince?”

“Aye, he did,” John whispered. “But only when the younger prince walked away. That’s when he realized that he wanted to live – and that the song was meant to send all of his darkness away on the air, so that he could breathe again and get better.”

He moved his face closer to Paul’s, his hands grasping the younger boy’s in his.  “He wanted to live, you see, but only if the younger prince was around and still with him, because otherwise there was no point. He’d only ever be half himself, without his Pol.”

John found he couldn’t go on.

“John,” Paul breathed, taking back his hands and using one to cup his partner’s cheek.

“I’m sorry, Paul. You’ve been nothing but…nothing but good to me, all through this.” A tear finally escaped from John’s pooling eyes and Paul winced to see it. He quickly brushed it away with his thumb.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Macca.”

“Please don’t cry,” Paul whispered. “I’m not hurt. I’m…John, I don’t know what I am. I don’t know anything, anymore. I just…”

John’s tears were flowing now, and Paul cupped his face with both hands, wiping them as quickly as they fell from his eyes. “We’re alright, John.” Slowly, without thought, Paul pulled John forward, and kissed his cheeks, kissed where his salty tears had trailed, kissed them lightly, again and again. “Enough. Please don’t cry anymore, John. I can’t bear it.”

“Paul,” John’s voice was a breathy moan.

“No, no more, John. No more tears.”

“Paul…” John clung to his partner’s head, moved in until their noses touched, and then their foreheads were pressed together, and their eyes were closed, and all they could do was breath together, gasping through the moment, sniffling and willing back John’s tears, and then sighing huge, cleansing breaths into each other’s mouths, and not moving away, staying just like that until the shuddery breaths grew calmer and softer, and there was nothing left to breathe in of sorrow or contrition or forgiveness. “We’re alright,” Paul whispered again.

And John rested his moist cheek upon Paul’s for a moment, pressing against it before placing a swift kiss -- just lips against skin, barely there, near his ear – and then moving forward and wrapping him in a full embrace.

Paul heard the kiss, more than felt it. “John,” he said, beginning to pull away.

“Stay,” John said. "Please just stay. Please."

Paul stayed. After a few minutes, he found himself relaxing into the embrace and settling his head on John’s shoulder. This was different. For once Paul felt at ease. He was not feeling pestered by his own mind, nor feeling that restless pull to be going somewhere, doing something, setting things to rights.

This felt…good. And… yeah. It felt  _right_.

“Would you say my name, again,” John spoke in a shy voice.

“What?” Paul raised his head.

“I just…I wasn’t joking before. There’s something about the way you say my name…it’s just… I don’t know. I like it.”

Paul smiled. “You are so fucking eccentric,” he said, pressing his head against Johns, his lips near his partner’s ear. “I love that about you. _John_.”

He could feel John’s shoulders heave as he chuckled. “I love that you love that. Because you’re a mad fucker, yourself, you know. A mad fucking genius, Macca.”

“Oh, stop, you’re killing me with compliments… _John_.”

“Ohhh… _yeah…_ do it again.”

“Oh, Christ, you’re not going to get off on hearing your name, are you, you fucking narcissist? _John?_ ”

John threw his head back and laughed out loud, breaking their embrace. “Stop, stop, Macca! Stop. Say my name again, and I can’t be held responsible.”

“For what,” Paul said, as though daring him.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Are you flirting with me? _John_?”

“Ah, you bastard. And why not, you were flirtin’ with me and battin’ those eyes all through my lovely story. _Pol_.”

“Call me that all you want. I'm not susceptible to it. It’s a dumb name.”

“Oh, interesting. Backtalk about the name but no argument about the flirting.”

Paul scratched his head, shooting John a strangely knowing look as his eyes flashed behind those lashes.

“I have to go tomorrow, you know,” he said, starting to chew on a cuticle, “I told Mike I’d be back on Tuesday.”

“I wish you would stay,” John said. “I know Me-Mumps wouldn’t mind.”

“I was just thinkin’ maybe I should leave now. Have supper with them, and all. Sleep in me own bed tonight, instead of crowding you out of yours.”

“But no. You’re staying, right?” John threw a frown, suddenly seeming on the verge of a panic. “One more night?”

Paul thought about it as he heard the downstairs clock chime the hour. “Me-Mumps will be calling us to tea in a minute,” he said.

“God help us if we ever actually call her that,” John mused.

“Look, then," Paul was clearly working something out in his head. "How about I stay, and we work up a song or some lines or such, yeah?” He connected with John’s eyes. “Keep ourselves busy-like and put our heads someplace productive, and all?”

John held Paul’s gaze, seeming to read his mind. After a moment, nodded.

“Aye. Might feel good to work a bit, at that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I am done with this, I am tempted to start writing The Adventures of Prince Jawn and Prince Pol.


	9. “I need you, Paul. I just… need you.”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Any admission that Paul was tired was enough to make John Lennon fret:
> 
> "Of me?” John’s voice sounded pathetically small. “Tired of me? Because of how I was, today?”
> 
> Paul turned his head toward him, grasping the hand at his waist. “No. Never that, John. Never that. Be still, now.”
> 
> John wrapped his arm fully around Paul, then, bringing himself as near as he could, his head resting against his partner’s neck and shoulders. “I just…I’m a mess, Macca. I feel like I need…I don’t know, like I have hands reaching out of my chest. Everything. I need everything.”
> 
> The words hung in the air, as though they’d been snatched back from that first day – the day Paul had found him hiding in the woods of the golf course – when John had first whispered them, unsure whether Paul had heard. "You might be everything, now…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy this chapter, which has a bit of fun leading up to some serious musing on Paul's part as to where his relationship with John could be heading, and why the timing of it all could make or break them. I was amused how, by the time the thing ends, John and Paul are defending each other to Mimi, even though Paul discreetly tells John to back off. While he's dressing him. Again.  
> ONE MORE CHAPTER TO GO -- for sure -- but I think you'll all be happy with how it ends. Hint, hint. Once again, thank you all for reading and for your comments, which I really do appreciate!

**Tuesday, July 22, 1958 - The morning after Julia's funeral**

 

“I’ve just come to say good-bye, Mimi, and to thank you for your hospitality.”

Mimi turned from the kitchen sink to see Paul, guitar slung over his back, duffle in hand, ready to leave Mendips.

“Up and about early, and looking a proper tramp, with that thing about your back. In such a hurry to leave us, are you?”

“I should think you glad to see the last of me after all these days,” Paul suggested.

Mimi ignored that. “Sit down and have some breakfast before you go. I’ll not have your family say I sent you home with an empty belly.”

“As though anyone ever would,” Paul said. “But it’s really not necessary, you know --”

“Perhaps not, but I insist. Sit you down.”

He made a point of putting his gear by the front door, and allowed Mimi to pour his tea.

“Making for a quick getaway, then?” Mimi turned to the stove and Paul noticed she had all of her ingredients lined up. Eggs, milk, butter, bacon, sausage. Potatoes and tomatoes already done. Not only was she sending him off with a proper fry-up, she’d planned it out, and had apparently been waiting for him. There would be no getting away from it, and Paul realized his idea of being out the door before John awoke was going up in a smoke of breakfast meats.

And wasn’t Mimi the sharp one, rightly noting that he was looking to escape before John had awoken.  Paul spooned sugar into his tea and gave her a look half-baleful, half-conspiratorial. “I thought I’d leave early, yeah. Told m’brother I’d be with him, today.”

“And is he an early riser, too?”

He lit a cigarette with a snap of his lighter as he looked at her. “Got something on your mind, Mimi?” he sounding detached, but watchful.

Mimi smiled to herself as she gave the meats a stir. She was beginning to love this boy. As sharp and direct as John, he was, but with just a bit of something else in him – an unexpected sort of self-assurance -- the sort of mindful but elegantly presented poise one does not learn, but is born with. As though he’d been a Chieftain in another life, and had carried forward the habits of readiness, resolve, and strategic movement most necessary if one was to be effective in that role. And to survive in it.

She knew, for instance, that by now Paul’s eyes had already taken in the breakfast outlay and had rightly judged that he was being cozied up to, in anticipation of a request. A glance confirmed it. He was sitting comfortably back in his chair, cigarette burning casually in one hand as he sipped at his tea, his eyes peering at her over the rim and showing both amusement, and expectation.  

“Do you look at your father with that face?” she asked, turning back to her cooking.

“What face is that, Missus?”

“Oh, don’t you ‘missus’ me, boy, like some bumpkin. I’m on to you, now. The face that says you’re the king of all you survey, and planning to expand your holding.”

Paul laughed out loud. “If I possessed such a face, Mimi, I’d be very selective about who saw it. Only showing it to who needed seeing it, like.”

“Ah, so your father, then, he has no idea about you, has he?”

His shoulders tensed a bit, but Paul’s smile, and his tone, were unchanged. If Mimi was going to call him a poof, now, he’d be disappointed in her, but ready. “No idea about what then, _Mimi, love_?”

Mimi’s eyebrows went up to her hairline at his boldness.

“The cheek of you,” she shook her head. “I’m asking if your father knows that the boy he’s raised, who looks like such a ewe-lamb, is in truth a bit of an intrepid buck. Quite pluck to the backbone and ready to give the horns when it’s called for.”

Paul rose, going into Mimi’s cabinet and rustling around until he found her secret candy stash. “Sounds like I’ll need some _heart_ for this conversation,” he said. “And how have you arrived at this surprising notion, then, that I am less a bah-lamb than a bull?”

“Well, I’ve had a front row seat at the John and Paul show for days, now, haven’t I, and for some of its most harrowing scenes. Seems to me you’ve endured countless engagements with John, many that would have scared off others. You’ve not only survived, you’re emerged the victor, that mark on your face notwithstanding. Do you prefer scrambled or sunny?”

“Over and easy,” Paul answered. “Never liked a snotty egg.”

“And yet you and John are so close,” Mimi marveled, breaking two eggs over the sizzling pan.

He gave her a slow, toothy grin and began to gnaw at a thumb. “So, the wit comes from the Stanley side, I see.”

“Still working on me, lad, when the need to win me over is passed. Save your flattering breath for your porridge and take that thumb out of your mouth.”

Paul pulled his hand away, still smiling, wondering how long Mimi wanted to play chess.

The answer, it seemed, was as long as it took to fry some eggs. Once she proudly settled an overflowing platter before him – “Feed on that, son, you’ll not find a better turn outside of London” -- the woman took a chair opposite, poured her own tea and, after a moment, rather demurely placed two chocolates on her saucer.

“One of us needs heart, anyway,” she murmured.

“This is more food than I can eat,” Paul said, “and I’ve already plenty to chew on, woman. Why not take a bit of it, and then tell me what’s gnawing on you?”

“Fair enough,” Mimi pulled a bit of potato and one sausage from his plate onto one of her own. “May I ask you, young man, why you are leaving before John is up?”

“You already know why, I think.”

Mimi nodded as she munched. “Because once he wakes up and asks you to stay, it will be hard to say no. Of course.”

“Hard, aye. But I’ll still go.”

“He’ll be furious.”

“I’m counting on that. John angry is better than John sad.”

“And just what do you think you’ll accomplish by tempting his wrath?

Paul shook his head as he dunked bacon into his eggs. “I’m just trying to keep him…” He paused.

“What, then?” Mimi looked remarkably tense.

“I’m trying…” He moved another sausage to her plate with a frown. “I don’t know if I can, but I’m trying to show him how to do it.”

“How to do what? You don’t like the sausage?”

“No, it’s fine, just too much. You’ve given me enough here to feed a small battalion.”

“How to do _what_?” Mimi repeated, ignoring the complaint.

“How to…” Paul put down his fork. “How to live for the rest of his life without Julia, and without falling into the Empty. The place where everything is just…the place inside where there is a deep, dark hole, and you can’t get out of it. And nothin’ ever fills it up.”

Mimi gave that a respectful beat of silence. “How did you do it,” she finally asked.

“I’m not sure I have. But ‘that thing’ I carry on my back, that guitar you hate? That kept me from bein’ submerged in it, you know. I mean, I’m still in it up to my knees, every day. But it hasn’t drowned me, hasn’t sucked me all the way in.”

“Seems to me you rather enjoy carrying a bit of a load on your back.” Mimi bit into her first chocolate. “Eat those eggs, lad. You like eggs and I’ll not see them wasted.”

Paul resumed his meal with a nod. “If you mean I prefer to see to things myself, I admit it freely. I prefer to control what I can, where I can, and it’s little enough.”

“Really, you astonish me. I may collapse of shock.”

“The cheek of you,” he repeated to her with a smile. “Especially as I sit here stuffing myself and wondering what it is you want of me, Mrs. Smith of Mendips, who is a dab hand at controlling the world around her where she can.”

Mimi sat back, gazing at Paul in mock wonder. “Truly, you are the bravest boy I know.”

“I’m not afraid of you, anyway,” he chuckled.

“Here’s the thing.” Mimi sat ramrod straight, her palms gripping her knees as she leaned forward a bit. “John needs you. He needs me too,” she acknowledged, “but not really. Of all of his friends, he listens to you, and responds to you.”

“When he’s not calling me a poncy usurper.”

“He didn’t mean any of that -” Mimi started.

Paul held up a hand, “Peace, Mimi, you needn’t defend him. I was just playin’. I know he doesn’t mean most of what he says. I know John’s ways, and I can wear them pretty lightly.”

“Do you know, young man… I don’t think that true.” Mimi looked at him very seriously, holding his gaze. “I think your regard for John is deep, and it’s heavy. It has weight. You simply carry it with unusual aplomb.”

“Aplomb!” he teased her. “Fancy word for scruff such as I. I’d say the same for you. Of course, I’d use a word like… _pluck_.” His tone grew rueful. “Then again, some would say I’m a fancy sort of boy, wouldn’t they?”

“I would like you to stay with us, here at Mendips, on the weekends,” Mimi blurted out. “If you would. If your father wouldn’t mind it. Just for the summer, until he begins at college.”

Paul pushed his near-empty plate away and held out his teacup for a refill. He made her wait for his answer, until he’d stirred in his sugar and lit a ciggie.

“Mark this date down in your little book, McCartney,” he said mildly. “Mimi has extended a standing invitation…” _To a sheep-eyed social climber_ , he thought, with more spite than he liked in himself.

Scratching his head, he looked at her with regret. “You know, Mimi, under normal circumstances, I’d have liked nothing better. But…I think you’ve a very bad idea, there.”

Mimi looked askance at him, one eyebrow raised, “And why might that be, then?”

Paul dabbed at some table crumbs with a finger before using his napkin to clean his place. “It’s tragic Julia had to die, but even worse that she died in summer. When my mum died it was autumn – all rain and howling winds, and saintly souls. Actually,” he considered, “a perfect time to deal with death – miserable weather, but at least it seemed fitting, and for Catholics the whole month of November is heavy with death.  It almost felt as though the whole world was doing a proper mourning with me. And I was away for a bit, as you know, but when I came back at least there was school – the routine of it. My own friends about, like Georgie. Things felt familiar enough. And yet, even with that bein’ the case, it was still…still really damn hard.”

“Which is precisely why I have asked you to stay with us -”

“No, Mimi, listen.” Paul looked up to her with his eyes as sad as she’d ever seen them. “It’s no good, because it’s not the same. For John…well, here it is, bright summer – no weather to reflect his own mood, and a load of time on his hands. Too much time, not enough routine. I figure one of two things will happen. Or, if we’re _really unlucky_ , both will: He’ll either go out and find some way to get into trouble, because…yeah, he’s hurt and he’s angry and that needs to go somewhere – in which case the greater Liverpool area may never get over the effect of John’s grief, played out –” he smiled wryly.

“Or he’s going to stay buried up there in his room, lickin’ his wounds, imaging no one could possibly know how he feels – and that might actually be true, you know – and then he’ll just…he’ll just disappear. Slide right into the Empty, and willingly, knowing John.”

“And you don’t think your coming here on weekends could help?”

“Naw, missus. If I were to be here each weekend, he’ll either use me for a punching bag, to get out all he’s keeping in -- because he knows he can trust me with it -- or he’ll, you know, come to think of _me_ as his routine. Or both, and I don’t think either of us want that. It would be a catastrophe that would end him. No matter which, it’d be a bad start of the rest of his life. He doesn’t need a crutch upon which to hobble along, he needs to be able to walk his own way.”

Paul grew silent, remembering how John had clung to him the night before, so needy, once more using him like a security blanket drawn tight, to let nothing else near.

They’d passed a decent few hours working with their guitars. Paul had shown him a neat chord change, and they’d managed to scrabble half of a tune together, for which John had written a few lines that might yield something good if they worked on it, but as they made ready for sleep, he had taken on that lost look that was becoming his default expression whenever John wasn’t occupied, and he began to work on Paul to stay through one more day.

“I really can’t, John.” Paul had gently told him, and surprisingly John had not asked again. But as they found their regular places in bed, he had quickly pulled Paul close to him, his hand dangling at Paul’s waist.

“Is this okay?” John had asked.

“Sure, it is.” Paul could feel John’s warm breath on the back of his neck.

“That didn’t come easily.”

“What didn’t, love?”

“The music. A song. Nothing…it didn’t roll easily, you know? Like normal?”

“It will,” Paul reassured him. “It was a long day’s end to a very extended bit of waking and all, with the inquest taking so long. A whole week of anticipating the day. You’re just tired.”

“And what’s your excuse? You tired, too?”

“A little,” Paul admitted.

There was silence, and Paul felt himself begin to drift.

“Of me?” John’s voice sounded pathetically small. “Tired of me? Because of how I was, today?”

Paul turned his head toward him, grasping the hand at his waist. “No. Never that, John. Never that. Be still, now.”

John wrapped his arm fully around Paul, then, bringing himself as near as he could, his head resting against his partner’s neck and shoulders. “I just…I’m a mess, Macca. I feel like I need…I don’t know, like I have hands reaching out of my chest. Everything. I need everything.”

The words hung in the air, as though they’d been snatched back from that first day – the day Paul had found him hiding in the woods of the golf course – when John had first whispered them, unsure whether Paul had heard. _You might be everything, now…_

John had tightened his hold, had whispered, then, with a frightening intensity. “I need you, Paul. I just… need you.”

And in that moment, Paul knew he couldn’t stay another night, because John’s claim felt all-encompassing -- it had too great a hold on Paul’s heart, and the younger boy wondered if answering it might do more harm than good, might become more about his own new (and startlingly unfamiliar) need than John’s, no matter how right that might feel.

The time was too tender, and too much was held in the balance – their friendship, their music, the band – to risk throwing things so wildly out of sync by answering _I need you_ with anything more than the squeeze of a hand and the simple offering of presence.

They were both exhausted -- Paul realized it, if John did not – physically and emotionally depleted. Confusion was normal in the circumstances, he thought. And he didn’t want to be confused, or tired, or not fully in his own wits, when it came to anything that might affect any part of his relationship with John, no matter what.

“I’ve got you, John,” he had murmured to John, letting himself be leaned into. “Sleep now do you, love. I’m right here.”

Paul had lain awake for long hours after John’s breathing became regular against him, before he found his own rest.

He emerged from his recollection noticing that Mimi’s own reveries were making a mess of things – her second chocolate remained forgotten between two fingers, and melting while she stared into her teacup, as though she might find an answer there. “I don’t know what to do for him.” She said in a low tone. “I have nothing to offer him.”

“That’s a bold and ready falsehood,” Paul said gently. He took the chocolate from her, popping it into his own mouth and handing Mimi a napkin for her fingers. “John needs you, and always will, aye. But _all_ he needs is your presence. Your rock-steady Mimi-ness, even in all your scolds. He needs that every day -- here, where he can depend on it, and crank on about it, and feel safe and secure in it. Which, I promise you, he does.”

Mimi looked at the napkin with a frown and then at her fingertips. Shaking her head as she wiped them clean, she seemed to re-engage. “Then _what_?” she demanded.

“John’s a musician.” Paul said simply. “He’s just like me. He lives and breathes music, and that’s what he needs -- to come around mine with his guitar, and to call for regular band practices. He needs to throw all of his energy into the band.” He rolled his eyes at Mimi as she rolled hers back at him, adding a little  _tsk_ of impatience.

“That _band_ ,” she said. “He needs to focus on getting through college, and that will be a welcome routine when term begins.”

“It will,” Paul agreed, “for as long as he stands it. It’s the band that’ll be his salvation, though. Rock and Roll exists for John as a sacrament and a noisy shaman. That’s what’ll heal him, if he can be healed.”

“This is solemn nonsense. You’re a dreamer.”

“Aye, and so is John.”

“Who’s dreaming what?” John asked as he stumbled into the kitchen, hair a fright, and no dressing gown over his pajamas. He got a bowl from the cupboard and found his corn flakes. “Quite a fry-up you have goin’ there, Mimi, any bacon for me or is it all for the boy prince?”

He sat down with an intentionally loud clatter of spoons and stoneware and looked directly at Paul as he poured his cereal. “And you're all ready to go, I see? Bag at the door, and all. Can’t wait to get home to Mickie, then?”

“And good morning to you, John,” Mimi said, rising to reheat a bit of bacon gone cold.

“Told you last night I’d be leavin’ early.” Paul said.

“You didn’t say you’d leave me sleepin’ and you not sayin' goodbye.”

“Well, but I’m here, aren’t I? Haven’t left yet. And you’re awake, aren’t ya, young prince _Jawn_.”

John looked away, concentrating on his cereal. “You should stay.” His voice was flinty.

“Can’t love. Gave m’word to Mike.” Paul took his dish to the sink, taking over for Mimi, giving the bacon a stir while she poured out John’s tea.

“Tell Mike to come ‘head then, come by here.”

“Yes, I’m sure he wants to spend the day with Mimi and her sponges and spray bottles, while we ignore him.” He handed a dish of bacon to John. “Come to mine, then. Get out of the house.”

“Not interested in seein’ old Jim, now, am I?”

“And no worries of that, ye sod.” Paul grinned at him. “Because I’m kicking yer arse out before supper time. And you’ll do better than bangers and mash over here. I think Mimi’s plannin’ a roast for you. A chicken and potatoes and such.”

“Am I?” Mimi wondered.

“Didn’t you say that? With spinach? Aye, you did.” Paul teased before turning his attention back to John. “We can call up Georgie, yeah? Have us a session?”

John made a face. “Not in the mood for any of the lads. Too soon, Paul. I’ll just…stay here, if you won’t.”

Paul looked at Mimi, above John’s head. “Nah, finish your brekkie and get dressed, then. Come on to mine. Stay until Mike wears your last nerve, and then go on, yeah? Maybe we’ll pop in the record shop?”

“Go, John,” Mimi urged him. I’m going to be cleaning all day, setting the house to rights after all the company. You’ll be in the way.”

“Jesus Christ, you two, when am I not in the fucking way!” John snarled and left the table abruptly, snagging a piece of bacon to take with him as he headed back up the stairs, and his aunt and his best mate both fell into their chairs as though already battle-weary. Mimi’s elbows were on the table, her face resting in her palms.

“Are you sure this is the right thing,” she asked Paul.

“We’ll find out, I guess. But yeah, I do trust that music is what John needs. It’s a heaven-connection, right, can’t be a bad thing then? Like, sex and music, they’re the things that bring us close to God, and all.”

Mimi peered at Paul through her fingers, too stunned to be stern. “And what, pray tell, would you know of any of that, young man?”

“Enough, to know I’m right, even if the theology is a bit off. Maybe I should take John bird-watching, then? Eh?” Paul smiled.

“Promiscuous, indecent boy. I have always known it.” She shook her head and gave a little moan. “God help this house.”

When John returned twenty minutes later, it was with a grim face full of defiance and his guitar slung over his shoulder. “Well, let’s have at it, then, Macca. Take me out of my auntie’s way, and then shove the poor unwanted orphan home a-supper.”

Paul looked him over. “You’re going out like that?”

“ _What_ ,” John challenged him.

Paul shrugged. “Nothin’ if you like it. Leave him be, Mimi.”

“Your shirt is buttoned all wrong, John,” Mimi said in an exasperated voice. “I swear you do this on purpose just to show me you can. You dressed yourself better when you were five.”

“Aye, and you’d be able to tell it, won’t you, Mims, because it’s all I’ve ever known, that tone of yours.”

Paul took John’s guitar off him. “Here, hold this,” he said. Quickly, he squared his partner’s shoulders to him  -- that steadying touch -- and redid the buttons correctly, shaking his head and giving John a rueful smile as he fitted the guitar back over his shoulders. “Stop driving Mimi crazy, lad.”

“Thank you, Dada,” John sneered, even as his tension eased.

“You’re right welcome, son.”

“Christ, you’re a feckin’ ass.”

As they headed to the door Paul stopped at a vase in the small hallway. With a wink at John, he snapped a pink carnation from its stem, slipping it into an open buttonhole of his own shirt.

“And just what are you doing, molesting my bouquet,” came Mimi’s voice.

“What can I say, lady? I’m a lad who appreciates a nice flower.”

“And you’re going out like that?” Mimi repeated Paul’s words back to him.

“ _What_ ,” he challenged her, echoing John, with one eyebrow raised.

“Parading all around Liverpool with a flower in your shirt, like a Republican signaling a riot.”

“Leave ‘im alone, Mimi, he’s fine,” John defended him as he opened the door. “C’mon, Macca, let’s get a move on, already.”

“Ta for breakfast, Mimi,” Paul called out as they left.

“You’re welcome,” she replied with a fondness that she had difficulty hiding. “You repellent, tedious, maddening boy.”


	10. Auntie Jin comes In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was one thing to be amused at the way Paul had taken over Mimi and her house like some candy-coated despot, but John Lennon would be damned if he’d be permitted to take charge of the band. He already seemed to think it was as much his as John’s, and maybe that was John’s fault – maybe he’d given Paul too much say in things.
> 
> That was going to end, right now.
> 
> John skidded into the front garden of the McCartney household and was off his bike before he’d fully come to a stop. He paid no attention to where the bike landed as he began to pound on the front door. “Macca! Macca, you bastard, open up!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. We've reached Chapter 10. The Chapter that was going to deliver the long-awaited "moment". And then Paul got himself into unexpected trouble. There was violence, and homophobia and hate and Auntie Jin has shown up to deal with the aftermath and she doesn't ever really stop talking or throwing around weird Irish recipes for healing salves and disgusting stews, and Paul hates stew. Also Ratty Ellen, she bites. 
> 
> But here is the thing. Stick with this chapter and I promise -- I PROMISE, b/c it's already written -- that by the time you get midway through Chapter 11 you will be happy. You will be really, really happy. Even happier than these two idiot boys, who keep making this story longer than planned.

**Friday, Late August, 1958**

 

The more he thought about it, the angrier he became.

How dare he? How _dare_ McCartney call for a band rehearsal and then hold it, and without even calling John first to at least ask about it? Yeah, he’d taken a few weeks off. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with it all right now. He was in mourning, right? His mum was dead! If anyone should have understood that, you’d think Macca would.

But no, he fucking clearly didn’t get it. There he was, running a rehearsal on the sly instead of just respecting what John was going through.

Or maybe, he thought, his ‘partner’, to whom he’d given all his trust, was taking advantage of John’s grief, trying to get control of everything just because John was holding loose on the reins for a bit.

Just a bit. Yeah, he’d dropped out of sight and had been keeping to himself but fucking hell, he’d only buried Julia six weeks ago, and all.

And it wasn’t Paul’s band, it was _his_. He’d started it and it was no one else’s business to run a rehearsal without him, as though he didn’t matter. As though anyone else had a right to continue what he’d begun.

As though he wasn’t _needed_.

But now, that bossy, over-controlling little bastard had done it, and if Ivy Vaughn hadn’t come by his house to borrow some records, John wouldn’t even know about it. Little fucker.

Well, he’d see about it, now. It was one thing to be amused at the way Paul had taken over Mimi and her house like some candy-coated despot, but John Lennon would be damned if he’d be permitted to take charge of the band. He already seemed to think it was as much his as John’s, and maybe that was John’s fault – maybe he’d given Paul too much say in things.

That was going to end, right now.

In fact, as John pedaled his bicycle toward Forthlin Road – his speed reflecting the state of his fury as he blew through traffic signals and nearly toppled over while turning too swiftly along a gravelly bit – he was thinking maybe he would cut Macca entirely. Maybe it had been a mistake right from the start to give too much weight to that smug, over-confident climber. A little whore for attention and praise, that’s all he ever was.

Well, he’d overstepped, now. Gone too far. Maybe overstepped himself right out of the band, altogether.

John skidded into the front garden of the McCartney household and was off his bike before he’d fully come to a stop. He paid no attention to where the bike landed as he began to pound on the front door. “Macca! Macca, you bastard, open up!”

No answer.

“Open up,” he yelled, attracting the attention of a few passers-by. “If you’re hidin’ in there, you little coward, I’ll climb up the drainpipe, come in through that grotty bathroom of yours and fuckin’ maim you!”

No answer.

He was about to let loose a third time when Mike McCartney came around from the back. “Hey,” he said shyly to John. “He’s in the back garden, come ‘head, yeah?”

“Oh, of course,” John sneered as he quickly pushed ahead of Mike. “Let me just come ‘round to where his Majesty awaits.”

“Well, he’s a little slow and all, just now,” Mike tagged along.

He found Paul spread out in a lounge chair, idly plucking at his guitar. It took everything John had in him not to pull the instrument from his partner’s hands and crash it against the house before pummeling its owner.

“You fuckin’ cunt!” he seethed.

Paul made a visor of his hand, frowning against the noonday sun as he looked up at John. “What? What’s all the yelling, John?”

“You’re fucking trying to take over my band? You called a bleedin’ rehearsal all on your own, didn’t even call me? Fuck you, Paul! _You_ don’t get to do that!”

Paul put his hand down and slid the guitar from his lap, handing it off to his brother. “Mikey, take this up to my room, would you please? Ta, and then stay outta here for a little bit.”

Mike took the guitar but, giving a side-eye to John, he hesitated to leave his brother.

“Go on, I’m fine,” Paul shooed him away. “Sun’s in my eyes, John, sit down, alright?” He patted the chair Mike had vacated.

“I’ll stand as I speak,” John spat out. He was still panting with fury and over-exertion. “I'll not stay. It's not what you’d call a social visit, is it? Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kick your arse out of the band, right now.”

“I’m not sure there’s a good reason why you _should_ want to. But do you go on,” Paul said, mildly irritated. “Tell me what’s got your drawers afire. I’m all curiosity, Lennon.”

“I already told you. You’re pulling the band out from under me, callin’ rehearsal. Leadin’ a rehearsal, just like you’ve always wanted. How dare you, Macca? How fucking dare you?”

“Do you really think that?” Paul wrinkled his nose, giving John a look of disgust. “D’ye think I’d do that to you? John?”

“And what else am I to think? Ivy saw you Wednesday night at a party, said you trooped in with the band after a rehearsal and had yourself a fine old time, didn’t ya? Even pulled yourself a bird, I hear, like a regular general.”

Paul let slip a little smile. “You never told me Ellen Rattigan bites. She’s a wild ride, that one.”

“Don’t.” John threatened, his face burning scarlet. “Don’t try to change the subject. Don’t sit there like a fucking prince and act like I’ve got no gripe, here, or I’ll throttle ya.”

“Well, in fact son,” Paul scratched at his hair. “You don’t. Look, I can’t talk to you like this. Sun’s giving me a headache. Just sit down, will you? And I’ll tell you why you shouldn’t toss me out of the band. Mind you, maybe I should just leave it, if you’re so ready to think the worst of me,” he added, as John took the chair and faced it toward Paul. “Thank you for that. My head’s dinlin’.”

“I don’t know why I’m always giving in to you,” John muttered. “And by the way, you look like shit. Leadin’ a band doesn’t suit you.”

Paul shrugged that off, closing his eyes. “Good thing, then, that I wasn’t busy being the scheming usurper you keep accusing me of being.”  
  
“When else?” John sneered. “I don’t keep accusing you-”

“You said I was trying to be a ‘better nephew’, yeah? Takin’ over your claim to Mimi?” Again, that little smile. Paul seemed in a deliberately temperate mood, not moving a muscle from his repose, as though he refused to permit John’s agitation to get to him. “Yer a stupid arse, John. You should know better.”

“Oh, should I?”

“Aye, you should. We’re partners, aren’t we? If one of us isn’t up to something, the other throws in a hand.”

“And what makes you think I wasn’t ‘up to’ callin’ me own rehearsal, and runnin’ it as well?”

John really was remarkably angry, Paul realized. So much so that he didn’t even offer him a ciggie as he lit his own, which was unusual. He let it slide. Wasn’t much in the mood for one, anyway.

“Well, you know, love,” Paul said, “It’s been weeks. If you were gonna call a rehearsal, you’dve done it. You’ve stopped talking to any of us, won’t come ‘round. You tossed me and Georgie out when we tried to visit you last time. And then when I called you Tuesday night, you --”

“You never called me,” John blew furious smoke from his nostrils, looking a right bull.

“I did, though. Ask Mimi. I called you on Tuesday night, to talk to you about it, yeah? She answered the phone. I heard her call up to you. You never picked up.”

“Like fuck.”

“Like _a_ fuck, actually. You never came and picked up. Couldn’t call you back when the phone’s left off the hook, could I?”

John turned his head, vaguely recalling Mimi calling something up to him. Might have been about a phone call.

“I mustn’t have heard her,” he allowed.

“Well, that’s not my fault then, is it? Given how you’ve holed yourself up in your room – exactly as I’d tried to keep you from doin’ by the way – and cut yourself off from everyone, what was I to think but that you didn’t want to talk to me?” Paul’s was rubbing his forehead with tense fingertips, as though the sun had really bothered him. “And by the way, you stink. When was the last time you showered?”

“Oh, Christ, here we go. Not the issue, Grandad!”

“Too right, John. John, _look at me_ ,” Paul gave one of those soft orders, impossible to ignore. “Look at me, and I’ll explain.”

John looked his way with a sigh of embarrassment.

“I tried to call you. Yes, I called a rehearsal, but not because I’m trying to take over. I was just trying to…you know…make sure there’s still a band for you to lead when you’re finally ready to get back to us.”

“Sure, Macca. You were just being selfless.”

“Aw, fuck ya son, I was actually bein’ selfish as hell! I want the band to become something, and I know you do, too.” He shifted slightly in his chair, as though trying to move in more closely to John. “They’re not real musicians, John. They’re not like us. They’re not thinking about goin’ a distance, and let’s be honest, they’re not good enough to do it. They know it. Term starts next week, and some of them are getting jobs and earning a few quid, and pretty soon they’ll be more interested in goin’ to the pubs and chattin’ up a future wife than playing. You go missin’ too long it tells them you’re not committed, and then why should they be?”

“Oh, so that’s yer story? You were bein’ a placeholder to preserve a bad band?”

“A middlin’ band, but yeah,” Paul settled back, looking bone-weary. “That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.”

John studied his feet for a moment. Paul was making sense, as usual. John hated him for that, sometimes. “You know, in my defense,” he said, “you could have at least called me next day, told me how it went, explained all this. Instead, you just let me feel cut off.”  
  
“Yesterday,” Paul mused. “I did think of it, but then I got distracted. Had to run into town on some errands, didn’t I?” He started chewing on a hangnail. “And then, the day got away from me.”

“I guess that happens,” John said, magnanimously deciding he might have once again been a little _ungenerous_ toward his partner. He offered his cigarette packet to Paul. “Smoke? Like a peace pipe, aye?”

“No, ta.” Paul shook his head. “Don’t want a smoke. Prefer a partner who isn’t always thinking I’m out to screw his pathetic ass -”

He was interrupted by Mike delivering their Auntie Jin to the garden, where she made a beeline for Paul. “Well you look better than what your father described,” she said to him, nodding a genial greeting to John. “I’ve brought you some lunch, and my salves and all, so let’s have a look --”

“I’m fine, Jin, Paul interrupted, looking dismayed to see her. “You’re lovely to trouble yourself, but there’s no need. Da shouldn’t have called-”

“You will kindly shut up, James Paul McCartney,” she commanded in a voice that would brook no disagreement. “You have nothing to say to this beyond ‘yes, Auntie’ and “right away, auntie’. If I’d been at home yesternight, I’ve have seen to you, be sure. Now, get you up, little man. Into that house, with you, then. Good lad,” she nodded approvingly at Michael as he helped his grimacing brother from his seat. Paul walked off – reluctantly and slowly – with his aunt nattering and nagging at him without pausing for breath.

John frowned and turned to Mike. “What’s goin’ on, there? Have I missed something?”

“Oh, you didn’t hear it?” the younger boy asked. “Paul got jumped in town yesterday.”

“ _What_? Fuckin’ hell, jumped how?”

Don’t know it all. Da’ asked him to go do some shoppin’ and what-all. He went later than he should’ve and got robbed on the way back. Hit the pavement – s’got a big bump on the back of his head, got kicked around and left in the street. Made his way home in a state last night, all worried that he’d lost the groceries to the gutter, and we’d be out the food’n money and all. Was pretty shook.”

“Fuck!” John fumed, “Why didn’t he say something? Is that why he was sittin’ there like a fucking lord holding forth? Because he couldn’t get up?”

Mike shrugged. “I never know why Paul does anything.”

John wasn’t there to hear it. He stormed into the house and ran up the stairs. They weren’t in the bathroom. He heard Jin’s voice coming from Paul’s bedroom, and opened the door unannounced.

Paul was standing with his back to him, slightly slouched, allowing his aunt to anoint his wounds with a pleasantly fragrant ointment in a plain bowl, as though she’d made it herself. His back and shoulders were hugely bruised. Sore-looking blotches of red and purple and blue covered his skin.  

“There, now,” Jin was cooing gently, ignoring John. “This will help with the ache and get the blood flowin’ so the bruising will fade the quicker, and there's onion and garlic and green leaves and herbs to see to the cuts. Let me see your front.”

Paul turned, his eyes averted, not meeting her gaze, nor seeking out John’s. His front looked even worse. Someone had beaten the crap out of him. “Shit,” John whispered.

“Ah, come hold this for me, John,” Jin invited.

He took the bowl from her and stood there, trying to will his friend to look at him as the older woman continued to tenderly dab at Paul’s chest and stomach. “I’m sorry, lovie, if that hurt you,” she said in response to a minute hiss of pain. “I’m trying to be gentle.”

“S’alright,” Paul said through his teeth.

“I don’t know what the world is coming to when you can’t pick up a few sausages without fearing for your own safety,” Jin mused. “It’s not like you were wearing posh clothes or anyone would think you’d have money on you to tempt them…” She looked at a raw-looking red mark at the base of his neck and tsked. “I suppose we can put a little on that lovebite as well, and I hope your father didn’t see it. Nice girl, was she?” Jin teased. “Or, probably not, if she did the likes of that. A vampire, then, aye? You need to be careful, love. Whatever it is you’re up to. These modern girls.”

Paul didn’t answer, only releasing a slow, shuddering breath as his aunt took a bit of her ointment to that bruise as well.

 _You didn’t tell me Ellen Rattigan bites…_   John recalled the words and hoped that really was a too-enthusiastic nip from Ratty Ellen, and not fingermarks or some kind of burn.

“Here now, young John,” Jin said. “We have to bind up those ribs so the lad can take a proper breath, don’t we?” She handed him the end of a rolled bandage. “Hold that there, in the middle of his back. Yes, right there, that’s grand. And Paulie, can you stand up straighter, my love? It will be a better wrap if you can.” She placed John’s fingers precisely on a cringe-inducing cut near Paul’s spine and began to wind the cloth around and around his torso.

“Is it…” John started. “Are your ribs broken, Macca? _Jesus!_ ”

“Oh, indeed, I think he’s a fracture or two in him, for he’s not taken a good breath since I’ve been here. Nothing for it but this.”

“I’m fine,” Paul breathed.

“That you’re not,” She tied off her work, and then had him sit on the edge of his bed. “Now, let’s see what we can do about that bump.”

“Don’t put that stuff on my hair,” her nephew started.

“I’ll do just as I like and you’ll be quiet. I don’t think your mum would stand for you puttin’ your hairstyle above your well-bein’…”

Jin was every bit as formidable as any nurse used to bossing her patients around, and Paul obediently tilted his head forward, letting a groan escape as she ran her oily fingers all about the swelling on the back of his head, tracing along the edges as well. “No lettin’ loose from your stomach, then? Not dizzy?”

Paul shook his head. “Told ya, I’m fine, Jin, it’s just bruises. And a headache from the sun.”

“Bruises, an egg the size of a bird’s own nest on your head and likely busted ribs, _and_ a headache, but aye, you’re just ducky, and don’t need your auntie by you, you lying thing, you. There now.” She placed a cloth over the bowl. “We’ll leave that here, and you’ll have Mike or your father reapply it all over that before bed tonight. This time tomorrow you’ll feel much more the thing, I promise. Are you staying for lunch, John? I’ve made an egg salad -”

“Not hungry.” Paul choked out as though he wanted to vomit.

“You’ll eat, though,” Jin finished. “And I’ll make a bite for you as well,” she said to John as she beetled out -- a woman on a mission, undeterred by anyone else’s thoughts or desires.

“And that,” Paul said quietly in her wake, “is why Mimi never scared me.”

“She’s a house-afire, that’s for sure,” John agreed as he sat next to him, placing a hand gently on Paul’s back. “Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt? I feel like a fucking idiot having at you when you were in no shape for it.”

“Wasn’t important, was it? Felt worse hearin’ what you thought of me.”

“Aw, fuck, Macca, you know I’m a bleedin’ ass. You know I didn’t -”

“Didn’t mean it,” Paul finished his sentence. “I know. Fuck, my head hurts now she touched it.” He looked up at John, meeting his eyes. “I know you never mean it, John. But sometimes… shit, I just wish you wouldn’t _think_ it before you didn’t mean it.”

Paul’s blunt words felt like hot pokers shoved right into John’s own skull. It hurt to recognize how deeply he’d allowed his brain to fester with a paranoid, ruinous infection of an idea. He’d been so nasty that Paul, who clearly felt awful, had not bothered to soften his language -- as he might have, another time -- but meant for John to own it. And yeah, own it he must.

“I am sorry, Paul, truly,” he said softly. “I should have known better. I’m not myself.”

“Aw, fuck, I’m not either,” Paul groaned, doubling up on himself. “Don’t know whether it’s the idea of Jin’s egg salad or this shit she put on me but I’m gonna puke. Help get me to the loo -”

John quickly pulled the boy to his feet and hauled him to the bathroom while Paul alternately yelped in pain and huffed in an attempt to slow down the inevitable. They barely got to the basin before he was heaving up his meager morning meal while choking on his own mucous-enriched, nonstop commentary. “Ugh! Tea is disgusting comin’ back up,” he gagged. “John, hold my ribs! Ah, Christ!” Another lurch. “It’s all chunks! My chest is broken!”

“Jesus, Macca, shut up. You can’t talk while you’re spewing. It’s getting’ everywhere!” John was doing his best to support Paul’s torso without hurting him. He was also trying to keep from retching, himself, as Paul’s miseries, like his complaints, seemed to go on and on. “Ah, God, I’m gonna die. Fuckin’ hell!”

His anguish carried and in a minute Mike and Jin were behind them. “Cor! His face is purple,” Mike marveled. “That must really hurt!”

Jin nodded at John. “Good lad, hold on to them ribs before he splits another.” Raising her voice to be heard over his groans and blorchings, she said to Paul, “You likely have a little concussion, dearie.”

Her nephew let out an almighty bellow of pain as he launched one more splattering heave from his stomach.

“Aye, so we’ll leave off the egg salad, then,” Jin, all unperturbed, called from the stairs, “but I’ll have Mikey bring you some cool water…”

“She’s gonna kill me,” Paul groaned softly as John guided him back to bed. “She means well, but I’ll not last the night if she keeps helping me.” John couldn’t hold back a chuckle as he encouraged him to lay down. Paul winced and hissed. “Everything hurts. Was better before she started touchin’ me.”

“Mimi says it always has to get worse before you get better. It’s part of healing. Maybe I should ask her -”

“I swear, John, you bring Mimi here, I’ll murder you. As soon as I can move again.”

“Come on, love, lie back, then.”

“Can’t. Back hurts. Front hurts. Throat’s burnin’ and I think _all_ my fucking ribs are broken, now.” Paul was starting to shiver. “Help me?”

Unsure of what to do, John found his friend’s discarded shirt and cautiously helped him into it, being particularly gentle as he brought it over his back. He knelt before Paul, noting how badly his hands were shaking, and pushed them aside. “Let me.”  

“You can hardly button your own,” Paul shuddered.

“Don’t be daft, I’m just havin’ Mimi on with that. Most of the time. And _you_.” John gave a little smile up at him, trying to hide his concern. Paul, unable to object, watched in a daze as John, with great care and a surprisingly soft touch, did his shirt up, button by button, finally meeting Paul’s eyes as he finished.

“Better?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“What else can I do for you? You need to throw up again?”

“Dunno. Feel cold.”

“Alrighty, then. You get to hold onto this.” John placed a small wastepaper container in Paul’s shaky hands. “And hang on, I’ll try not to hurt ya.” He pulled the blanket from where it was tucked in by the wall, and drew it with surprising lightness, around his partner’s shoulders. Then he leaned against the wall and drew Paul to him, fitting him solidly against his chest and straddling his hips.

“How’s this? Warmer?”

Paul settled back with a sigh, his trembling beginning to slow. “Better. Now if we just never move...”

“Gives me an excuse not to join Jin for lunch. Oh, sorry, sorry,” John said as Paul’s groan threatened another bout of retching. “Here, Paulie, just lay back on me, now. Close your eyes.” He wrapped his arms around him, and let his fingertips draw small soothing circles on Paul’s stomach. “That too much?”

Paul rolled his tender head against John’s shoulder in an approximation of a negative. “S’good.”  

“Good. I’m so sorry this happened to you, Macca. You should have told me. You should have called me last night. I’d have come to you.”

Paul rolled his head again. “No, you’d put yourself away. Went into the Empty, like I knew you would. Stubborn bastard. All away into that.”

“I wasn’t away from you.”

“You were.” He exhaled and winced. “I don’t want to fight…”

“No, nor I. But you should have called. I’ll always come to you, Paul. I should have been here last night,” John said ruefully. “The bastard. Did you get a look at him?”

“What, you mean before I hit the ground, saw stars and then curled up with me arms over me head while they kicked me around? Yeah, I got a good look.”

John winced at that description, and then realized what he’d heard. “Wait, _they?_ How many were there, Macca?”

Paul was silent. He had begun nibbling at a thumb, worrying his cuticle.

John jostled him gently within his embrace. “Macca, love? How many were there?”

“Just two. Three. But…the third one was…he was only laughing, I think. Didn't touch me.”

“But…What are you sayin’ to me, Paul? That three guys jumped you and no one saw it or tried to stop them?”

More silence.

“Please. Stop gnawing on your damned thumb and tell me.” John lifted Paul’s hand away from his mouth and held it in his own.

“I mean…” Paul sighed hugely. “I mean, they did rob me. They must’ve because everything was gone except what got ruined in the gutter. Milk… me.”

John felt a sense of panic arise in him as the story shifted. An ugly idea began to stir within him. “They ‘must’ve robbed’ you?” He moved his head to Paul’s bruised shoulder, settling as softly as he could. “What is it, Macca? What it is you’re trying so hard not to tell me?”

So intent was he, John didn’t even notice that Paul had started chewing on the thumb of his free hand. He was almost afraid to ask the next question, the logical question that had to follow.

It came out in a whisper. “Paul, please. Tell me. _What really happened to you?_ ”


	11. Another Button, Another Kiss: All Kinds of Okay...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You're not to tell anyone, right? Not even Mike or Mimi. Or my da. Especially not him."
> 
> "You know I won't." John said softly. "What happened, Macca?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slow burn finally reaches ignition.  
> Thanks again for all the encouraging comments. You guys are great.

Before either of them managed to speak another word, Mike came bounding up the steps with the promised water and the news that it had begun to rain – as though that was worth remarking upon in Liverpool. He placed a small tray on the desk and poured out a drink, forcing Paul to take his thumb from his mouth.

“Ta, Mike,” Paul’s voice was a little hoarse, and he gratefully drank it down.

“Paul, I never saw anyone throw up and scream at the same time like that.” Mike sounded awestruck, bounding up on the bed and making his brother further wince in pain. “Did it really hurt?”

“It really did.”

“Aye, and your jumpin’ about on his bed isn’t helping, lad,” John said. “Get lost.”

“I’m to ask whether Paul would like a lamb stew or a shepherd’s pie for supper. Auntie Jin said.”

“Oh, God,” Paul let out as mournful a groan as he’d ever managed and leaned his head into the wastepaper basket.

“Tell your auntie that jam and bread will do,” said John.

“Christ, have mercy,” Paul gulped.

“Are you going to throw up again?” Mike asked with wide eyes.

“Please…”

“Get out ya tosser. If he throws up, you’re wearing it,” John threatened. “Out. And close the door after you.”

“Alright but she’s just gonna send me up again with more questions…” Mike’s words faded as the door closed.

“Oh, my God.” Paul sounded like he wanted death over anything.

“Come on, lad, sit you up, now.” John brought Paul back against his chest and put his fingertips to work on soothing his gut again.

“I fucking hate stew.”

“Who doesn’t, aye? Come on, lie back. Not worth thinkin’ about.”

Paul sighed deeply, rolling his head away from the bump as he relaxed against John’s shoulder once more.

“And now, you’re going to answer my question, yeah?”

“I’m tired, John.”

As carefully as he could, John wrapped his arms more tightly round Paul’s torso. “You have to tell me, though, you know. Even if you never tell anyone else. We’re partners.” He kissed Paul’s temple lightly. “You know you can talk to me.”

“I know.”

John hesitated only for a moment before plunging forward with the question that had been eating at him since he’d watched Jin treat Paul's wounds. “That thing on your neck. It looks bad. Did they…did they do that? Did someone put their hands on your neck, or you know, restrain you? Hold you down by your neck?"

“What?” Paul sounded genuinely confused.

“That raw, red…thing. Jin thought it was a lovebite but it looks--”

Paul's shoulders began to shake and John feared the worst -- that he was crying -- until he realized his friend was by turn laughing and grimacing in pain. “Christ, John, that was just Ellen. I thought ‘Ratty’ was short for Rattigan. Didn’t know it was because her teeth are like feckin’ razors.” He felt John snort against him and decided he’d prefer to keep him laughing. “I mean, she’s cute and a lively shag and all, but be told: those teeth are never gettin’ past my belly. She’d have my nuts off and set in her cheeks for winter in one bite.”

John’s shudders were partly from laughter, but more heavily connected to the profound sense of relief he was feeling. He hadn’t realized how deeply the look of that mark had shaken him.

“Wait,” Paul turned his head to him. “What did you think, that they were trying to actually kill me?”

“I just…oh, Paul, I just thought maybe you weren’t tellin’ it to me straight. Like maybe they jumped you to try to…I don’t know.”

“What, John? Try to what?”

“Well, you know…it’s just…it’s that face of yours, Macca. I was kinda getting worried that someone had tried to…well, I was wrong so forget it.”

“John.”

“Sorry, it was a stupid question.”

“John.” Paul grew quiet. “Are you saying you thought they wanted to… _have_ me? Like, rape me?”

John broadened his seat, wrapping his legs around Paul’s as though to keep him still. He sounded ashamed when he answered. “I admit, yeah, Paulie. I was worried.” He swallowed, hoping Paul’s silence wasn’t about his anger, which was sometimes slow to rise, but always hard to face. “I always worry about that with you, Paul.”

“ _Why?_ ” One word. So dangerously quiet.

“Because I see the way they look at you, and you’re fucking oblivious. You’re like a puppy who thinks everyone is his friend, and you don’t even see what I see. It’s like they want to consume you, feed on you outright, and pass you around.”

" _Who?_ ” One word. Still so quiet.

“Everybody. Fucking everybody, Paul. The birds. The poofs. The sailors. Even some of the mums around here lick their lips when they see you comin’ and follow you with their eyes. They’re not even discreet about it.”

Silence.

“Paul…you have to know you’re good-lookin’ right? It’s just -”

“You think I look queer, don’t you? Just like everyone else does.”

Somehow, Paul disappointed sounded worse than Paul angry.

“I don’t-” John said.

“Well, why else would you say that, John? You’re good lookin’. Georgie’s good-lookin’ and I don’t ever think – nobody would ever think you’d be jumped for it. Nobody just looks at you and says 'He must be queer.'"

“I didn’t mean it, how it came out -”

“Oh, Christ, again with the ‘didn’t mean it’ -”

“Will you listen? I’m sorry, Paul I know you feel like hell, and well you should, but will you listen?”

Paul shifted, painfully, turning to look at John with a side-eye, chewing away at his thumb again. “Talk.”

John stared at him for what felt like a full minute, finally shaking his head. “Macca…” He drew Paul’s hand away from his mouth again, and held on. “You’re fucking gorgeous, alright? You’re so perfect it’s stupid. If you were a bird, I’d never let you out of my sight, and I’d constantly be in some holding cell for punching anyone who looked at you the wrong way. Like they do, now.”

“And they say chivalry is dead,” Paul said, dryly.

“No, but…love, why would it surprise you that people who don’t understand the first thing about beauty would try to assign it the only way they can understand? You’ve got those flippin’ bird eyes, and those lips…I’m just sayin’ _of course some people_ are gonna say you look like… like a soft lad. You’ve a soft face, too pretty for a man. And people who can’t imagine anything but the commonplace will indulge commonplace thoughts about you for it. That’s all I’m saying. You understand?”

Paul swallowed and looked away from John. “Stop holding my hand,” he said.

John let it go.

“I’m tired,” Paul said, and he sounded it.

“Are you alright?”

He shook his head. “Help me lie down, will you? Room’s spinning.”

John instantly unwrapped himself from Paul and helped him settle himself comfortably in bed, rolling him gently below the blanket and onto the pillow, with as little jarring as he could manage. He knew Paul was feeling it, could see him trying not to grimace until he was finally mostly on his back, with an extra pillow shoring him up where his ribs were most tender.

“Do you want to sleep?” John asked, his concern radiating from his eyes.

“In a bit,” Paul said. “First I want to tell you.”

“Tell me what, love?”

Paul turned his head, facing away from John, toward the rain-spattered window. "You're not to tell anyone, right? Not even Mike or Mimi. Or my da. _Especially_ not him."

"You know I won't." John said softly. "What happened, Macca?"

Taking a deep breath, which caused an even deeper wince, Paul started. “I was done with the shopping, alright? And heading for the bus stop. These three lads were comin' up the other direction, and you know – three big fellas on a sidewalk – they blocked the way. Asked me if I could spare a fag.” He shrugged. “I actually couldn’t, and not just because my hands were full, so I told them ‘sorry’ and walked around ‘em. And after a couple steps, they called out, ‘We meant _you_ , queerboy.’"

“Oh, Macca…” John’s voice was shaky. 

“I turned around.” Paul said softly, still looking at the window. “I _responded_ to it, you know? Like… call boy a boy, he turns. Call a bird a girl, she looks up. Call a queer a queer…you know.” He lowered his head. “It was a mistake. Just confirmed it for ‘em.”

“No, Paulie, that’s nonsense. I’d have turned too. And I’ve had launched myself at ‘em and bloodied ‘em up. Answering a catcall doesn’t mean shit.”

“Yeah, you would,” Paul smiled a little, moving his head with a wince as he looked at John. “You’d send them to hospital or die trying.” He bit his bottom lip until it nearly turned white. “I didn’t. I just…froze. All I could think was: _‘There’s three of them. And I have to get home with this stuff. And they think I’m queer. And why do they think I’m queer, am I putting that out? Even my own da’s said it!’_ It was all just flashin' through my head like... like a bunch of bad angels whispering all through me.”

John lay beside him, cupping Paul’s face, and Paul gripped at his wrist, holding on. “Part of me was saying, ‘Just throw the bags at them and run,’ and the other part was like, ‘No, can’t waste the money, the bus will be here soon.’ Like… part of me was being sensible, but it wasn’t the part that really _was_ sensible. Stupid to worry about the money. Stupid to worry about… God, it was just like when my mum died, wasn’t it? Something bad is happening before me, and all I’m worried about is the money. What the fuck is wrong with me?”

“Nothing. There’s nothing wrong with you, love. Didn’t you tell me once that this house is the first one you’ve lived in with indoor plumbing? Might go a long way to explainin’ all that.”

“No, there’s something wrong with me. I should have just thrown the stuff at them and run.”

“You’re a terrible runner, Macca, we both know that. With three comin’ after you? Mighta been a stupid move. Maybe all of your options were bad ones, ever think of that? If they’d had to chase you, they’d be pissed off, do worse when they caught up with you. Maybe no matter what you did, yesterday, you weren’t getting out of it without help.”

Paul moved John’s hand from his face, bringing it down to his chest but still in his clasp. “I just stood there, like a fool. And then one of them shoved me. Lost my grip on the bags and fell back, hit the walk.”

“Christ, is that how you got that nasty egg? Could have fractured your skull.”

“Yeah, I saw lightning, and all. And then they were... like fucking mindless hyenas, just laughing and they started kicking me, and... I was afraid. Started thinking they'd kick me head and I'd die, or they'd stomp on my hands and I'd never play again. I was afraid they'd stomp my face or my chest and really hurt me. So I..." Paul’s voice broke. “I just curled up like a fucking loser and let them kick at me. Hid my head under my arms and curled up and just…felt them kicking, and kicking. Like I wasn't even human. Just...a thing to play with.”

“God, Paul, I’m sorry.” John kissed his forehead and regained his hand, brushing it lightly through Paul’s hair, mindful of the swelling toward the back.

“How do people do that to someone, John? You don’t kick a _dog_ , right? How do you attack someone because you don't like their looks? And they kept on laughing. And I was just letting them.” Paul’s face was red with shame and a terrible self-loathing. And the anger he felt toward himself, for not doing more to fight back. “One of them, he wasn’t really kicking hard but the other one…fucking sadist, he was letting fly with his workboots. He was mad that I was covering myself, so he stood on one of my feet until I had to turn or it would’ve busted.”

John gasped. “Fuck me, that’s brutal!”

“And that’s when he just…stomped. He stomped on my stomach and then gave one last good kick to my ribs. I couldn’t breathe.” Paul was panting a little, as though reliving it. “Felt like I’d never be able to breathe again. I was just rolling, trying to find some way away, some way to breathe. And they were laughing. Calling me ‘faggot’ and ‘queerboy’ and…well, you know all the words. Think I rolled myself into the gutter, and that’s why they were laughing.”

“Fucking bastards.” John snarled. “ _No_. Be told, son, they were laughing because they’re fucking bullies and morons, not because of anything you did. They could have killed you, Macca.”

Paul’s eyes were squeezed shut as he finished with what, to Paul, almost seemed to be the most shameful bit. “I think they spat on me. I know they did. They spat on me. Like I was garbage, John. Like the gutter was just where I belonged.” He sniffled and then shook his head against himself. No way was he going to cry. But it was becoming a near thing.

“Why the fuck didn’t anyone help you?” John’s distress was naked in the tension of his tone.

“Who was going to help me? The mum pushing the pram, she was going to come rescue the queer? The kids waiting for the bus? Gonna risk themselves for a poof? There was no one.”

“And I wasn’t there.”

“Well, that’s the stupidest thing…you’d never have been there. Don’t generally need anyone to run errands with me, do I? Nothin’ you could have done, John, so stop that.” He reached over, painfully, and caressed John’s cheek, and then his hair, with a thoughtful expression. “Do you know what I was thinkin’ today, before you came over?”

“What, love? Tell me.”

“I was thinkin’… you know, if my mum were alive, maybe she’d have been doin’ the marketing because dad had to work late. And maybe she’d have been the one encountering those…fuckin’ idiot assholes. And who knows what would have happened to her, yeah? It’s the first time I ever thought maybe I was glad she wasn’t around for something. That if evil is always in play then… then maybe we can’t avoid it, and then I’d be glad to take a beating that she might have otherwise tripped into…”

“Macca, stop.” John was horrified. “No, son. Your head’s goin’ in a bad direction. Anything could have made a difference. You could have been five minutes later and have never met them. Some big fuckin’ cop could be ten minutes ahead of himself on his beat and they’d never have dared it. It’s just what you said, love, it’s evil, and it’s bad luck. It’s nothing you did, and you weren’t a fill-in for anyone else. It’s just the filthy, hopeless and broken old world, Paul.”

"I’m a fucking coward.” Paul looked away, afraid his eyes would betray the full measure of his anguish.

 _If you’re hidin’ in there, you little coward, I’ll climb up the drainpipe..._ John scalded at the memory, barely an hour old.

“You’re no goddamn coward,” John said, his voice breaking and his eyes growing wet. He was stroking Paul’s head and face with both his hands, trying not to press into him, afraid to hurt him in any way. “You’re the bravest lad I know.”

“You need to meet better lads, then.” Paul shuddered through a deep breath.

“Couldn’t. C'mon, you’re the great Prince Pol. Faced down the fearsome Me-mumps. Faced down me in all my fits and furies. Faced three against one, you did, yesterday and still put me in my place today, busted ribs and all.”

“Stop, John, it’s not a game. This isn’t a story, and I’m not a warrior prince.”

“You’re _my_ warrior, Paul” he insisted. “You’re _my_ prince.” His hands still cupping Paul’s face, John found there was nothing for it. Without thinking twice, he lowered his head and brushed Paul’s lips with his own, lightly, as though he were afraid of breaking him.

“Macca,” he swallowed, looking up to find Paul huge eyes grown even wider, and bright with surprise, “It’s no good trying to convince me otherwise. I may be blind without my glasses but I can see everything about you, as you can’t. And all I see is greatness.” He lowered his head again, making a point of kissing the bottom lip so often tormented by Paul’s teeth when he was anxious. He kissed him there. He licked the worst-bitten area with a sweet delicacy. He sighed and finally kissed Paul fully on the mouth, a chaste, closed kiss that felt like fire to John’s blood.

“John…” Paul whispered.

“Mm?” John kissed his cheek.

“What are we doing?”

“ _We._ ” John sighed and pretended to think. “Well,” He leaned up, planting his lips softly on Paul’s forehead. “ _You’re_ lying there, like a broccoli, because 90% of your body is in pain, and the rest of you feels like shit, too.” Another kiss. John’s fingertips trailed down his partner’s face, back to his lips, brushing them lightly with his thumb. “ _I’m_ kissing you because you’re my beautiful Macca and I can’t... I can't stand you hurting. I want you to feel better.”

“Oh.” Paul sounded a little anxious.

“Should I stop? I’ll stop.”

“No…” Paul touched his hair. “It’s – it’s nice. Only…I don’t know where this goes…”

“It doesn’t go anywhere we don’t want.” John breathed. “But I have to tell you, Macca, today, when I saw your chest and how bad it looked, I just wanted to put my lips there and kiss it better. I wanted to do it when I buttoned your shirt, too.”

Paul smiled in disbelief. “Are you saying you want to kiss my owies? Is that it, John?”

John smiled back. “Do you know, love, if you don’t let me do it, I may not be able to sleep tonight. How could I, knowing my prince is layin’ here, body all sore, and no one’s tried to kiss it better.”

“I could call Ellen Rattigan,” Paul considered.

“Aye, you could,” John nipped at the slight cleft in Paul’s chin. “But she’d use her rat-teeth thinking she was teasing and next you know your pretty face is torn to shreds, and then no one will ever want to kiss you again.”

“Not even you? If I was all scarred instead of _pretty_?”

John looked at him very seriously, placing his hands on either side of Paul's face. "I’d kiss every one of your scars, every day, Macca. And they’d soften up under my lips and fade away until you always looked like you, to me, no matter what.”

“Christ, John.” Paul breathed after a moment. “You’re an idiot romantic.”

“You’re an idiot savant. And I want to kiss your owies.”

They lay together, forehead-to-forehead, barely breathing. “It can’t go very far, Macca,” John whispered, trying to reassure him. “You’re a mess, and I daren’t hurt you. I just want…”

“I really do feel like crap.” Paul interrupted, brushing his lips against John’s. “All these owies.”

Sharing a smile, they moved into another kiss, a little more open, tongues just daring to flick and swipe against each other. John suppressed a moan that was just begging to come up and out, afraid it would scare the hell out of Paul, who already seemed to be trembling from what John hoped was anticipation or pleasure, and not fear.

The great Lennon was feeling enough fear for both of them, anyway. His own hands were shaking as he began to undo the shirt he’d so carefully closed only an hour earlier.

He went about it slowly, taking great care not to lean on Paul’s injuries as he undid one button at a time, planting a kiss as each new opening revealed a bit of aching, bruise-mottled flesh. A third of the way down, he could hear his partner sigh as all of his muscles seemed to relax and slip more fully into the mattress. “Paul? Okay, my prince?”

Another sigh. “All kinds of okay, Jawn.”

John groaned. “That’s my name, you’re saying. Feel free to wear it out.”

He heard Paul chuckle lightly as he threaded his fingers through John’s hair. “Alright. _John_.”

 _Oh, God,_ John thought, his already aroused senses given a jolt by the singular and strange effect Paul had on him – top to toe -- whenever he pronounced his name.

Another button, another kiss. He was kissing just above the bandage line – just above Paul’s heart, and he lingered there, trying to catch its rhythm through his lips.

“John,” Paul breathed again.

 _Oh, God. Paul’s voice. Paul’s heart. Paul’s fingers in my hair. Glorious._   _And terrifying. And if he says my name again, I’m going to fall apart. I’m going to shatter like glass._

Paul was shivering beneath him. “Cold, love?” he asked.

Paul raised his head, blinking at John him with eyes barely focused. He shook his head and fell back into the pillow, hurting himself. “Ow.”

John smiled at the kittenish complaint and continued kissing his way down Paul’s chest -- lips over bandages, now. He cringed to remember areas where the skin had actually been slightly torn from the impact of a boot and a mind full of malice, and he gentled his movements even further, slowly working his way past all of white binding until he’d managed to reach the skin of Paul’s concave belly, which startled him with its incredible softness – like the sweet, always covered girl flesh of a bird’s upper thigh, though he’d never dare say that to Paul, not after what he’d been through.

“ _Ta-da_ ,” John sang as he spread the shirt fully opened. “Owies all kissed. Mission accomplished.”

“No...sloppy job,” Paul complained softly. "There’s whole areas up here you’ve missed.” He gestured around his pecs, and his collarbone, which boasted plenty of blue, red and purple shades to qualify as owies.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” John said, scooting up – and jostling Paul a bit more than he should have – to bring himself to eye level. He let his fingertips move lightly over Paul’s chest, imagining that each feather-light sweep of his fingers was moving the stagnant blood, and wiping away all the pain, until Paul’s own hand stopped him.

“Did that hurt?” John asked worriedly.

“It tickled,” Paul said. “I would have had to start laughing or screaming or both, and any which way it'd be torture.”

“Sweet torture, though?” John asked.

“I will kill you. If you tickle me, I’ll have to.”

“Then I’ll just kiss you instead,” John smiled. They slipped into another kiss, and this time John allowed his moan an escape, and Paul wasn’t afraid, he just smiled and kissed him back, and then John let his hand trail down -- one finger, lightly, all the way down the middle of Paul -- until he reached the supremely tender flesh of his belly, and skimmed his hand there, just grazing the waist top of trousers that probably needed to come off, and Paul jerked, and then gasped in pain, and then laughed and then gasped in pain again, a self-perpetuating cycle that was becoming increasingly hard to bear.And then John lowered his head to where his hand was so carefully grazing, and he kissed him there, on all of Paul's taut softness, and then again where his flesh met the fabric below, and Paul was wriggling. John opened his lips, licking softly just at that spot, the tip of his tongue softly tracing the line of Paul's trousers, and both of them were moaning. But there was pain, so much pain, and it was outweighing the pleasure, finally. 

 _Kill you,”_ Paul sang softly, and against every instinct he possessed, John stopped. He sighed and laid his head next to Paul’s, on the edge of the pillow. His breath felt hot, even to him.

“John,” Paul said, suppressing a smile.

John clenched his eyes in resistance against the power of Paul pronouncing his name.

“My prince.”

“Did you like that? Doing that?”

John considered the delicious, maddening ache in his groin, which had bloomed early and was showing no sign of letting up. “I did. I do. I’m still enjoying it. Dying a little, too. Hated to stop.”

“Yeah,” Paul agreed.

“Did you? Like that? Me, doing that?”

“ _Yeaahhh_ …I’m still liking it, too. And dying. Hated to stop you.”

“You know…there are solutions--” John started. His hand reached low, again, teasing Paul at the line of his trousers. It would be so easy to go just a little lower, and cup him, feel him.

They looked into each other's eyes, barely breathing.

“But I will have to kill you," Paul whispered, finally.

“I know, love, I know." John sighed. "Can’t wank around when every bit of it will cause pain somewhere.”

Paul groaned.

“I wonder if that salve of your auntie’s might –”

“Jesus, John! We can’t use my auntie’s Irish healing shit like that. It would feel…incestuous. Ew. No.”

“Just an idea,” John smiled. "What is that stuff, anyway?"

“I dunno. Leaves and myrrh and oil and onions and whatever Celtic witchery’s been passed down the ages. She says it moves the blood and breaks up bruises.”

“Well, we won’t touch that, then,” John decided. “M'blood’s already moving too hard. Play around with that, might suck out my whole life force, and my entrails with it.”

“Doesn’t sound fun,” Paul said. 

Beneath the flush of his aroused state, John noticed, Paul was actually looking rather peaky. He brushed the black fringe from his forehead with his hand, checking for fever. Unsure of what he should feel -- his own hand was so hot -- he put his chin to Paul’s forehead.

“What are you doing?”

“Seein’ if you’ve a fever. This is how Mimi does it.”

“She puts her chin on your forehead and that tells her if you have a fever?”

John pulled away. “Yeah. Not sure how, though.”

“Daft woman.” Paul yawned, letting lose with another mewl as his injured head rubbed the pillow wrong.

"Poor boy, no matter how you move it hurts, doesn't it?" John shook his head at the pitiful state of him. “I should go,” he said.

“You should stay,” Paul disagreed, even as his eyes were blurring from fatigue.

“No, pain makes you tired, even I know that. And sleep helps with healing. I know that, too. You need to sleep, love.”

“The wisdom of Mimi?” Paul asked.

“Might be the wisdom of Auntie Jin, and I’m not going to argue with her, are you?”

“Never. You should stay, though.”

John sat up beside Paul and gave him a stern face. “Look, you. I can’t stay. First, I can’t sleep here, because I’d just hurt you movin’ about in bed, and I’ll not sleep on the floor, because you might throw up. Second, I do in fact – as you mentioned earlier today – stink. I need a bath, and clean clothes. Not sure how you’ve put up with me. Third…”

“I feel so relaxed now,” Paul murmured.

John chortled. “Aye, you do. Only one way to be more relaxed than that.”

“Ratty Ellen? Now I have a headache.”

“If you didn’t have so many bruises, Macca, I’d give you one for that. Let’s put Ratty Ellen to bed, shall we?”

“Done that. Cute bird. No bed. On the grass at midnight.” Paul blinked through sleepy eyes.

“Jesus, stop bragging, already.” He kissed both of Paul's closed eyes, lashes and brows, too. “Sleep tight, princling.”

John was nearly out the door when Paul’s voice drifted out to him again. “What’s the third thing?”

“What?”

“Too painful to sleep with you. You stink. What’s the third thing?”

Lennon smiled. “That’s a secret. Gotta check something out, first. I’ll call you about it tomorrow, and if you get better, you’ll find out on Sunday.”

As he was leaving, he stopped in the kitchen to tell Jin that Paul was sleeping, and to inform her that her nephew, in fact, hated stew. “His favorite meal is bangers and mash.” He then found Mike and reminded him to help Paul out of his clothes once he awoke.

John got on his bike feeling better than he had in recent memory. The abyss wasn't staring back quite so keenly, suddenly. Climbing out of the Empty and bossing around his best mate’s auntie. Not so hard, after all.

He couldn’t wait for Sunday.

 


	12. A Bastard and No Better...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I wasn’t jumped for the money, Da.” The words were rushing out. “Or the food…though it’s true they took what they could.”
> 
> “Well, then?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, the last chapter got a little long, because Paul and his father ended up having an unexpected moment, and I had to let them have it, so here it is, standing alone -- a brief segue into a necessary father-and-son dynamic before the end finally comes. 
> 
> But I promise, the end DOES come in Chapter 13 and will be posted very shortly, so...happy reading, then! I hope you like this unexpected little chapter, which seemed important for Paul's sake.

Even reapplied before sleep, Auntie Jin’s ointment did little to alleviate Paul’s misery. The bruises were spreading (“That’s just the salve breaking up the pooled blood,” Jin insisted), and Paul’s appetite continued to be non-existent while his headaches were ever-present.

Although he had no wish to give insult to his sister Jin’s ministrations – which, to be fair, were usually more effective than this turn had been – Jim McCartney was worried enough about his son’s state that he brought him to a nearby clinic for assessment. He was beginning to fear that, light concussion aside, the overnight expansion of his son’s bruising might be a sign of a slow internal bleed.

“It’s a fair concern,” the doctor had agreed. “Being kicked about like that, we’d look for a ruptured spleen or damage to the liver.”

Thus, Paul hissed his way through a painful examination full of palpation on every tender spot around his ribcage, stomach, and back, before being declared “Well enough.” His ribs were rebound with proper medical tape while his father was assured that “A few weeks rest” were all Paul would need to feel himself again. “Mind you, if the headaches or the dizziness become worse, or you see any changes to his manner or mobility, you’ll take him right to hospital, yes?”

Jim McCartney agreed, joking with Paul that Mike would be pleased to take over his chores and errands for a few weeks, wouldn’t he?

Paul was too exhausted to respond with more than a weak smile and upon returning home simply got back into his bed, with an assist from Mike. “John called while you were out with Da,” he said. “Said for you to call him.”

“Later,” Paul murmured. His body had never ached so much, nor had he ever fallen asleep so quickly in the daytime before. Aside from being nagged awake a few times by his father or his brother as they kept a watch and urged sips of water on him, he slept straight through to Sunday.

In the morning, feeling quite a lot better for the sleep ( _‘_ _And sleep helps with healing, even I know that…’_ John had been right), Paul stretched his aching muscles and spied a note on his nightstand.

_John called to say if you’re well enough be ready at 11 in the morning. He wants to take you somewhere. Mike_

It was as good a reason to get out of bed as any, and enough to send Paul (slowly) downstairs, where his father was preparing tea. “Ah, there you are,” Jim said. “I was coming to see if I could bring you breakfast, but if you’re down here on your own steam, that’s a good sign. Can you eat?”

“Maybe toast, ta, Da. But can you help me? I can’t shower with this tape on and I stink of Jin’s crazy shite, and I need to wash my hair.”

And so, after tea and a slice of toast, Jim McCartney -- his son seated on a stool before the kitchen sink -- ministered to Paul’s battered body as gingerly as he could, noting with some satisfaction that the boy was not grimacing under his hand as he had with the doctor, the day before. That had to be a good sign, yes?

Jim winced himself, however, as he tended to a nasty cut showing just under the taped ribs on Paul’s right side. There was no addressing it without some pain, as the kick had literally ripped Paul’s flesh. Finally, he simply pressed the flannel against the raggedly forming scab as gently as he could, before moving on.

“You’re bearing up well, son,” Jim said. “I’m afraid my hands are clumsy at this work. Your mum…” He sighed. “Well, wouldn’t she be bathing all your wounds with such tenderness, now? Sayin’ all the right words, bringing as much comfort to you with her soft voice as to your hurts, with her knowing touch.” A heavy silence fell upon father and son, as both of them wondered how much they could permit Mary McCartney to penetrate the moment without letting in more emotion than either of them felt able to handle.

His father ran the soapy cloth over Paul’s neck and shoulders, hearing his son groan in appreciation, and then brought a second cloth to rinse. “What was it she used to say, then, when you’d come in bleedin’ at the knees?”

“ _You been ignoring yer Guardian Angel again?_ ” Paul said softly, with an accurate imitation of her light tone, “ _Surely he was warnin’ you not to play so rough._ ”

“Aye. And here you’d done nothing rough to bring this beating about,” Jim’s voice was unusually sharp. “Where was your angel then, I want to know.” Paul felt him lay a towel on his shoulders to keep away a chill. “I’m sorry this happened to you, Paul. And for what? A few pence and a roast?”

“Mum would say they must have needed it worse than we did.” Paul said, looking down, detesting his lie.

“Mary was too soft, that way,” Jim agreed. “Always assuming the absolute best of people instead of simply acknowledging that there are fiends and selfish bastards everywhere. Come, lean over the tap, and I’ll help you with that hair of yours.”

“You said ‘bastards’" Paul said from under the stream of water. "You never swear.”

“It's well-warranted this time, I reckon.” The swelling on Paul’s head was much reduced, but Jim still frowned as his fingers gently moved over it, taking its measure and worrying that he was giving pain. Paul was silent, throughout.

“I remember, once, when you were little, you came in with a bump on your forehead, and your mother got the butterknife and held it under the chilly water. I had no idea what she was about, and neither did you. When she brought it to your head, you shouted for her not to cut the bump off because that would hurt worse.”

Jim chuckled at the memory. “I admit, I wondered what she was doing, too. But she only laid the blade upon the swelling, first up and down, then across. Said the cold metal and the Sign of the Cross were all you needed. One of those mad Catholic things, you know, but that egg did go away quickly. And there we are,” his father said, finally, gently pulling his son back from the sink and laying the towel over his head.

“Are you well?” 

“Aye, Da, thank you. Feels good to be clean.”

Jim looked thoughtfully at his son for a moment, and then turned on the cold tap, again. With a little smile, he held a dull knife under the water until it was very cold, and then – slipping the towel from Paul’s head -- he pressed the chilled steel lightly upon Paul’s swollen spot, up and down, then across. Paul gave him a bemused look.

“Couldn’t help it, son,” Jim smiled. “Felt like she was right there on my shoulder, tugging at me to do it for her. And it couldn't hurt, then, could it?” He went about rinsing the sink and tidying the area while Paul wrapped the thick towel around his hair.

“Is there anything I’ve forgotten?” Looking at Paul again, the elder McCartney seemed startled by the sight of him. “Ah, that takes me back, the _look_ of you, and those eyes of yours,” he said. “I’m remembering your mum carryin’ you out of the bath, your head all wrapped up like that, and herself cooing at you. “ _Who’s a handsome little lad, then? Who’s the prettiest boy in Liverpool?_ ”

He was startled to see Paul react badly to his mimicry, letting out a gasp as he covered his eyes, his shoulders hunching over. Unwilling to witness his son’s tears (if they were to come), he turned the subject, calling out to Michael and asking him to strip Paul’s bed linens. “Let’s not have him sleepin’ in the stench of Jin’s magic oils this night.”

He took a knee beside Paul’s hunched figure. “Don’t weep, lad. Buck up. I know it’s been a trying few days for you, but she’d not want you cryin’ in her own kitchen would she? And there’s no need--”

“Da,” Paul lowered his hands. His eyes completely dry, but a look of pure misery lived all over them. “I’m _sorry_. I lied to you.”

Jim gave him a puzzled look. Aside from sneaking into the house by the drainpipe, which Jim found more amusing than annoying, he knew fibbing wasn’t in Paul’s nature. “About what could you be lying son?”

“I wasn’t jumped for the money, Da.” The words were rushing out. “Or the food…though it’s true they took what they could.”

“Well, then?”

It took Paul a minute to gather himself and face his father. “Da?” He was almost whispering, as though making his first confession in years. “They…they said I looked like a ponce. They…it was all because they thought I was a prettyboy -- a _queer_. That’s why they…I’m sorry. I couldn’t face you with it.” He dropped his head in shame.

“Oh, Lord, have mercy…oh, Paul…” Jim McCartney laid a hand on his son’s shoulder. His mind was thrown into a whirl – a painful mix of anger for his son’s sake and the sudden recollection of his own miserable behavior after Mary’s death, when his drinking would bring his fists out against Paul, leaving their own unjust marks upon him. And the very same words of accusation – those ugly words, _queer_ and _ponce_ and _faggot_ \-- leaving his own lips to land like blows to the heart and spirit of his son, and for no reason beyond bleak fear, for no purpose beyond lashing out at the world in a drunken fit of grief and helpless rage.

His sense of himself as a man-in-full crashed into the awful admission that he was as capable of mindless abuse as anyone, and he was left roiling. The truth of it felt like a profound and real sin to Jim McCartney, something Hell-worthy. Regret washed over him, sudden and forceful as a tidal wave, full of mud and debris, full of the filth he’d allowed himself to become in his own dark moments. “Oh, my son...Jesus Christ have mercy.” His voice was trembling.

Tucking his shaking fingers under Paul’s chin he raised his head, forcing Paul to look into his eyes. “It’s too wrong, too purely wrong,” he said. “Hear me, lad. You’ve borne too much since your mother died, and here and now I see I’m no better than them as laid hands on you. I’m a bastard no better than them.”

“You’re no bastard, Da.”

One silent tear ran down Paul’s face. His father brushed it away. “If I’m not one today, I have been. And you’re a good man, James Paul McCartney. You’ve never earned a bit of it. Not now, not then. And I am sorry. I am grieved for you, and so sorry, so deeply sorry, for my own unspeakable part in any of it. Can you forgive me, son?”

And for the first time since his mother’s death, Paul felt his father’s arms go around him as he was pulled into a paternal hug, so unfamiliar, so strange -- so necessary, and so welcome even as it brought him physical discomfort. He endured the pain in silence, for the consolation of the embrace, until Jim remembered his wounds, and lightened his grasp.

“ _Do you forgive me, Paul? Can you?_ ” The words came again on a broken voice full of regret.

And Paul laid his head on his father’s shoulder, his own arms reaching around to grasp the older man, and bring him close. “You know I do, Da. You know I do.”


	13. "I'd like to kiss ya, but..."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And then John heard a tear – would be forever convinced within himself that he heard one single tear drop from Paul, falling with a mighty resonant splash onto the grave of Mary McCartney. “They hurt me, Mum. They spat on me, and they hurt me... Did you see?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John is so often a true bastard, so often capable of cruelty, it was a pleasure to write him doing something beautiful for Paul, wholly out of his own generosity of spirit, something he rarely taps into in this story.  
> I really hope this final chapter is satisfying for all of you who have been so encouraging to me. I hope it's worthy of all your kind words and encouragements.

 

John showed up at the McCartney residence with uncharacteristic promptness, and in as buoyant a mood as Paul had ever seen him. “Well, you look a damn sight better, Macca, and I’m glad of it. Let’s be off while the day is fine, eh?” 

Paul had barely managed to get himself dressed and readied with a little help from Mike, and now he opened the door stiffly to let Lennon inside.

“That's a boy," Lennon smiled, "Bring your guitar, then, and let’s get going.”

“Mike, can you get it for me,” Paul called out. “In the case, and all? I can’t carry it on me back.”

“Two _weeks_ of this,” Mike muttered to John, as he ran upstairs to do Paul’s bidding.

“Good lad,” Jim praised his younger son when he returned. “And where are you takin’ my son off to, Lennon?”

John shook his head, managing a polite look. “It’s a surprise, but nowhere bad, I promise.”

“He’s got to take it easy, you know.”

“Well, for two weeks, anyway, if Mike’s grumblin’ is right,” John smirked. “But no, we’re just taking a wee bus ride and having some lunch is all. Paulie likes buses.”

“Could the two of you kindly stop talking about me like I’m a Class-A Moron bein’ let out on a field trip?” Paul said, taking the guitar off Mike with a wince. “Ta, brother.”

“You could have a Sunday lunch here, both of you, you know. You'd be welcome, John. I don’t want you to overdo, son,” his father nagged.

Paul gave a groan of disgust. “Da, let me out of the house before I go mental. I feel all caged in and I’m not a piece of glass.”

Jim McCartney gave Paul a pointed look and nodded. “Alright, son. You’re yer own man, after all.”

John closed the door after them, and nudged Paul down the path. “Wait for it,” Paul said as they walked. “I’m my own man, but watch.”

The front door opened again, and Jim McCartney called out. “Be sure not to overdo!”

Both lads laughed as they walked to the bus stop. “So, where we going, Lennon?”

“You’ll see. Nowhere good. Don’t get yer expectations up. Here, let me carry your case.”

“I can do it,” Paul insisted, grabbing it back, though the guitar was already beginning to feel heavy.

“Oh, look at the braw one. A right He-Man he is,” John teased.

Bravado aside, Paul was happy to see the bus coming just as they arrived. He appreciated the fifteen-minute rest while they rode, and the chance to look around (John had been telling the truth; he really did love riding on buses), until John patted his arm at their stop.

After a few blocks walking, though, he didn’t object when John took his guitar case from him – the older boy had noticed how frequently Paul had begun moving it from hand to hand.

“And here we are,” Lennon said as they reached their destination. 

_She’s only at Yew Tree, you know, but I’ve never gone._

_We should go, then, you and me..._

“Are you kidding me,” Paul asked in a stunned voice.

“Why not? Told you I’d bring ya, son.”

“Yeah, but…do you mind? Is it too much for you, a cemetery? I mean, Julia…”

“Wouldn’a, if I couldn’a,” John said, touching his arm even as he wondered himself whether he was up for spending time in a graveyard -- whether it was all too soon to be amid all of the memories he was afraid might rise up to meet him once they stepped inside. For himself, he'd the sooner keep away. But he instinctively felt like Paul, mauled and mistreated beyond anything either of them had ever experienced, needed this. And for Paul's sake, he could bear it.

Still, he did ask, “Is it too much for _you_ , though, Macca? Do you want to leave?”

“N-no,” Paul replied, thinking to himself that after this morning’s moment with his father, something about this visit almost seemed fated to happen. “But I don’t know where she’s buried, John. And there’s no marker -”

“Well, aren’t you lucky, then, that your best mate is a resourceful bastard who looked it up yesterday.” Putting on his eyeglasses, John nudged Paul with a guitar case, “In with ye, lad. I want to meet yer mam, and all.”

Completely unfamiliar with his surroundings, Paul kept moving toward anything that looked like an unmarked grave, while John kept steering him this way and that. It took only a few minutes to find the spot – an expanse of open grass between two respectable-sized monuments – and there the two boys stood, John wondering if Julia’s grave now looked this settled and green, Paul wondering what should happen next.

“Why do people do this?” Paul took John’s arm as he suddenly felt very uncertain of himself. “What do we do, now we’re here?”

John put down both guitar cases and scratched his head. “I dunno, really?”

The cemetery was smallish and it actually had a cozy, welcoming feel to it, but Paul had no way of knowing that. To him, it felt immense, and his mother’s grave like a huge mystery before him. Completely at a loss, his Catholic instincts kicked in and he crossed himself, supposing that prayer might be a thing people did when they made a graveside visit. He couldn’t pull any prayerful thoughts forth from himself, though, so when he dropped to his knees it was not with anything in mind beyond a need to touch the thick, lovely grass beneath which his mother’s body lay.

John watched quietly as his friend moved his hand over grass, again and again in increasing arcs, as though he was a divining rod, seeking to determine where Mary’s body might actually be. “She’s just down there,” he murmured to the air. “Think of it. Just a few feet. And I am here. And people can stand here, and walk over where she rests, and they don’t know her – don’t know that they’re walkin’ over what's left of a good woman." His words were ruminative, as though he were a narrator, not intimately involved with his subject -- just someone thinking it all through. "They’ll never know who she was. How kind she was. Mum was so _kind…_ to everyone. Thought the best of everyone.”

John squatted beside his friend. “Think she’d have liked me mum, then?” He said quietly.

“Yes.” Paul answered without hesitation. “I never heard her say a bad word about anyone. I mean, she wasn’t foolish. No one could take advantage of her, you know. But she didn’t look for ways to dislike people. And she’d have loved you, John.” Paul looked up briefly, made eye contact and then looked back down at the grass. “She’d have seen you for yourself.”

Paul continued to run his hand over the deep green lawn, his eyes growing solemn as he grew silent. After a time, he lowered himself fully to the ground, moaning a little, whether in pain or grief or both, John couldn't tell. He stretched himself out -- reached out as far as possible with his aching limbs, starfishing, as though trying to cover his mother’s remains as protectively as he could, from the heat of the sun, from the brightness of the sky, from the world outside of himself.

“ _Mum…_ ” John heard him whisper, and he backed away, leaning against a headstone behind both of them. He lit a ciggie, and took off his glasses, and lowered his own head. It was all the privacy he could manage for Paul’s sake.

“Mum…” Paul repeated, and the sound was like a simple ache, echoing outward.

“Mum…”

The word went on, repeated so softly and seemingly minute by minute. Paul was resting his head on his hands, speaking into the earth, as though begging to be heard.

“Mum…"

"We miss you.”

Another beat of silence.

“ _I miss you…_ ”

After a bit, John watched as his partner lay his head sideways, his body still flat, ear pressed to the ground. “It’s been hard,” he heard Paul hiss. “Everyday is really hard.”

“My friend John brought me. My best mate. You’d love him, Mum…”

At that John stood up, unable to bear further witness to whatever was happening with Paul. His own eyes were watering, and he had no intention of becoming a weeping distraction in need of attention, himself. He stepped into the row behind and began to pace as he smoked one cigarette after another, looking back at his friend, and then away, and then back again, and trying not to eavesdrop on Paul's sweetly tortured murmurings to his mother.

Nevertheless, being blind and not deaf, John heard a little bit. “It’s all _wrong_ without you...”

And,

“We have a band. We could be great, Mum, John and I. You’d like it. I wish...I _wish_ you were here.”

And,

“Can you see me, Mum? Can you hear me when we're playin' our songs? Can you see me when I’m bein' bad, and pullin’ birds and all?”

And then John heard a tear – would be forever convinced within himself that he heard one single tear drop from Paul, falling with a mighty resonant splash onto the grave of Mary McCartney.  “They hurt me, Mum. They spat on me, and they hurt me... Did you see?”

And,

"I love you so much..."

And,

“I’ll be okay. I will... _Mum_ …”

And John paced until he realized he heard no more whispers coming from Paul. He looked over and saw that his partner had curled in on himself, as he always did when he needed comforting and had no arms but his own for it. He had fallen asleep like that, making a marker of himself atop his mother's resting place.

 _What's left of a good woman_ , Paul had said. "That would be _you_ , mate." John whispered. 

Lennon gave it a half hour and then roused Paul from his slumber, touching his shoulder gently. “Wake up, Macca, love,” he said. “Time for lunch.”

“Mmph?”

“You need to get up before you have a tan on only one side of that pasty Irish face of yours.” He helped Paul, whose injuries were screaming after the long stillness on his chest and belly, to sit up and stretch. “Up. There’s food.”

Paul blinked at what John had created across the grassy footpath while he’d slept. There was a blanket and a collection of napkins holding bacon butties and grapes and cheese. There was even plain cake. “Is this…a picnic? _Here_?”

“I’m told by Mimi that the Irish Catholics, who are to blame for almost everything, are also to be charged with making picnics of a visit to a cemetery, but that -- the world being a mad place -- it's become a common practice. So, yes, it’s considered perfectly okay.” John suddenly looked troubled. “Do you mind it?”

“Well,” Paul seemed undecided, but a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “I mean, if Mimi has sanctioned it, and all…”

“Aye, she has, and you know she is all-propriety. Come ‘head then, let’s eat.”

Paul scooted to the edge of the blanket, hissing in pain all the way, and then stretched out his legs. “Did Mimi put this together? Where the hell did it come from?”

John rapped at Paul’s shoulder lightly, then apologized. “Sorry. But I resent the implication that a few bacon butties and fruit are beyond me.”

“Sorry,” Paul gurgled. “Didn’t know I was wounding your pride. How’d you get it here?”

John blushed. “ _Mimi's_ ingenuity, actually. Her idea to put the blanket in my case and fit the food round it. Oh! And these!” John reached behind him and brought out two bottles of soda. “A little warm, but they’ll do us. But I did make the sandwiches!”

“And I’m sure they’re delicious,” Paul said, as John opened a bottle and handed it to him. He raised the drink. “To Mimi, then.”

“To Mimi.”

“And to you…”

“And Mimi.” Lennon repeated. “She also sent this along.”

What John handed him was a posy – two pink carnations surrounded by violets from Mimi’s own garden and wound together at the stems with the thinnest of strings. Paul raised it to his nose and sniffed in the spicy fragrance. For the rest of his life, he thought, the scent of carnations would likely bring him to this place, and with his mother and Mimi forever tightly bound, like the two very different flowers in his hand.

He raised his eyes to John. “Tell her I said thank you, please. Mimi is her own manner of kind.”

“Tell her that yourself, son. I say those words to her, the woman will think she owns me. She sent you this, too.”

It was small box of chocolates, with a note. “I don’t know what’s going on with the daft woman, but there’s damn chocolate all over the house, suddenly, and we’re both getting fat,” John added.

Paul smiled, enjoying the fact that he understood something about Mimi that John did not, as he opened the note.   

 

> _My Dearest Paul,_
> 
> _What happened to you was a crime and I am furious that anyone would get away with so badly mistreating you. One day you will be a great man, and that will be a fine vengeance on them all as they die in their own piss and sins, in some foul public house, somewhere, and may it happen soon._ _I wish you instantly well and pray that your pains will be of short duration._
> 
> _Onward, my bonny young Chieftain. You pestilent, impudent, and valiant creature!_
> 
> _Fondly,_
> 
> _Mimi_

Paul held his ribs as he laughed out loud, handing the note to John. “And I will get vengeance on her, for making me laugh and hurt myself.”

“Christ,” John said, handing the note back. “She’s never written anything so nice, to me. You’ve gone from ‘Sheep-eyed common boy’ to ‘Bonny young Chieftain’ in the space of what, a month or so?”

“Scrambled eggs,” Paul chuckled. “Let me feed a woman scrambled eggs and whiskey and she’s mine for life.”

“I do especially like the ‘I wish you instantly well’ bit. As though she’s daring your body to continue hurting, now she’s addressed it.”

“We need to get her and Auntie Jin together, sometime.”

“Oh hell, no.” John laughed. “Not until we’re out of Liverpool, anyway. The two of them in the same room? Atomic catastrophe." He grew serious. "But you should have seen her when I told her you were hurt. She got bright red and set her jaw. She was furious for you."

“John,” Paul motioned with his head. “Could you come closer? And bring the grapes, and all? Can’t reach, and I’m achin’.”

John groaned, “And all of Liverpool becomes your slavies. I dunno, Macca, seems like you’re starting to enjoy all this deference just a little too much.”

“Ah, I’d wale on you for that if I had the strength.” Paul munched on his sandwich as he accepted a napkin John had filled with grapes and cheese. “You didn’t…” he started shyly. “You didn’t tell her, did you? About -”

“Good Lord, _no_ , Paul. I wouldn’t. It’s your story to tell, not mine. Although I expect she’d be just as angry, anyroad. Only, maybe she wouldn’t call you a ‘bonny Chieftain’ in that note, yeah?”

Paul almost choked on a grape as he laughed and then grabbed at his sides.

“What?” John asked.

Paul held on to himself, still laughing. "I can just see Mimi, one eyebrow raised, trying to find exactly the right phrase, then. She might go for _my bonny sissypants,_ aye?”

A graveside picnic was one thing, but the sound of two young men lost in a relief of bold laughter brought a stern-faced woman around to them. “A little respect for the dead, please,” she scolded, and John and Paul laughed all the louder, even as they promised to be quiet. The woman’s two little boys frowned at them in confusion as their mother huffed and stepped away. “Are you brothers?” One of them asked.

“Aye, sure,” John said, looking at Paul. “We’re twins, you know. He’s the good one, and I’m the evil one.”

The boys' eyes went round with alarm.

“You want some grapes?” Paul offered.

“They’re _poisoned_ ,” John added, narrowing his eyes and nodding his head as he let loose a cackle.

Paul almost collapsed in amusement as the boys, wide-eyed and terrorized into silence, ran back to their mother. He was sucking in his breath as his abused ribs felt ready to crack. “You’re mad, Lennon. Completely mad.”

“Oh, you love it.”

“I do.” Paul said, wiping his eyes. “I do. And I thank you, John, for bringing me here, today.”

“You feel alright then? Better?”

“Aye, much. I feel…” Paul sighed, considering. “Well, I don’t remember when I’ve felt this good, even in all this pain. I feel… _light_. And I haven’t for a very long time.”

“Well, and I thank you, too.” John said, seriously. “If you hadn’t been with me all through Julia’s funeral and all…not sure I’d have thought of this. I thank you for showing me that it matters.”

“When we got here today, I wondered if that was true," Paul admitted. "But it does, doesn’t it? I feel like…it's as though a door that had been left open too long, and let in too much wind and rain has finally been shut. And that’s thanks to you.”

“S’nothin’” John blushed. He noticed Paul’s shoulders beginning to sag. “I should get you home, love, before you wilt.” He snapped open Paul’s case and handed him his guitar. “But let’s do this, first.”

“What? What are we doing?”

John got on his knees, peering off in the direction of the woman and her sons. “Aye, she’s left. I thought we might leave Mary in song, as you left Julia.”

“Aw, I can’t sing, though, John. Can barely take a deep breath, mate.”

“That why you’ll play and I’ll sing. Give me some chords and all, just to make it pretty.”

Paul winced and decided to leave off the strap. “What’s the song, then?”

John looked at Paul for a long minute and then leaned in, kissing him on the forehead. “Just follow me. Figure it out, genius.” And he began to sing.   

 

> _O, Mary, may the road, rise up, rise up_
> 
> _to meet you, to meet you as you go_
> 
> _may the wind press you into heaven_
> 
> _from the troubles here below_
> 
> _And Julia, may the sun shine warm, so warm_
> 
> _upon your laughing face,_
> 
> _may you frolic in the sun_
> 
> _after leaving from this place_
> 
> _And you sons, you sons_
> 
> _Of mothers gone too soon, too soon_
> 
> _Weep ye freely, but then laugh_
> 
> _For love fallen, yet ever-true_

It was a simple and traditional Northern tune, with words half-stolen from an old Irish blessing, and Paul was easily able to play behind John, who sang out in a strong voice, one that barely broke upon his own mother’s name. By the end, when John repeated the last lines, Paul was able to join in, harmonizing in higher thirds and fifths:    

          _Weep ye freely, but then laugh_

> _For love fallen, yet ever-true_  

The boys finished with a familiar sense of satisfaction. Whenever they sang together, especially when they harmonized, something felt settled between them, as though they were each somehow completed. It always brought a shared sense of rightness, and  mutual smiles, too. Even here, beside a grave, it was the same. 

“Ta for that. Felt good to play. And it was lovely, John,” Paul said after a moment. “You’re a right bard, you know.”

“Ha,” John gave a rueful laugh, “A thievin’ one, anyway.”

“No, I’m serious. Something sweet as that, and just for Mary and for Julia…and for us, too. I thank you.”

John shook his head, looking away. “Do you play for me then, my weary lad – my ‘bonny young Chieftain’ --  and I’ll pack all this away so we can get you home. If I bring you in half dead, old Jim will skin me through and use my hide for a lampshade.”

Paul repeated the chord progression he’d just played, humming the tune a bit and watching John as he rather sloppily found ways to fit the blanket and napkins back into his guitar case. He came upon the cakes and raised his eyes at Paul.

Paul shook his head as he played. “Leave it for the birds. My mum loved to feed the birds."

“Funny, so does Mimi,” John murmured as he crumbled and scattered what remained among the grass. He noticed the guitar had gone silent. “Alright, Macca?”

“I guess I am tired, now,” Paul sighed. “I feel good, but I’m tired.” He offered his guitar to John, who packed it away and then put out a hand to help him up.

“Nay, John, sit down a minute, would you? Have a ciggie?”

John patted himself down and found his scrunched-up pack. “Couple left. Sure you want to, with those ribs?”

“I’m dyin’ for one, really,” Paul took the lit cigarette from John’s hand and welcomed the first shallow puff, so different from his usual habit of wolfing smoke into his lungs. “Ah, that’s grand,” 

They smoked companionably for a minute and then Paul gave John a most serious look. “I do appreciate this, John. If it’s been a hard couple of days, well…you’ve given me the antidote to it, and…you know, maybe to a lot of other bad days, too, all together. This was…” he looked all around himself, raising his arms as though to enclose the entire day within them. “This was superb. And it was generous of you. And it was very kind, love.”

“Aw, don’t Macca. You know you’d do all of this for me.” John demurred, preferring to look at his shoes rather than Paul’s wide, earnest eyes.

“Maybe. But you did it for me." Paul used his fingertips to turn John’s face toward him and waited until John’s eyes met his. " _You_ , John Lennon, did it. For _me_. I will never forget it. I hope you will never forget it either."  He lowered his voice, his face moving closer, even as he winced as he moved. "Johnny... sometime when you’re in one of your moods, and you think you’re only a miserable bastard who no one could ever love – and you _know_ you get like that -- you need to remember when you did this, and why you're lovable. Remember this. Okay?”

“You’re makin’ me blush, Macca, let go my face.” John didn’t know what to do with all of this praise, all of this gratitude. It felt too intimate, and too much of a goodness to be true. He wanted to look away, but Paul’s grip on him held.

“No," Paul said with surprising firmness considering how weak he felt. "I want you to _hear_ me, John. Hear what I’m saying, now. All of it. _Remember this_ , okay?”

And before John could say a word, Paul’s lips were on his. Leaning forward from a headstone, seated beside his mother’s grave, Paul kissed him outright, and his lips were soft on John’s, but so determinedly _there_ – a kiss both chaste and lingering, lips barely parted, just enough to share a taste between them -- and bringing with it a warmth of feeling neither of them needed to interpret beyond how good and right it felt. Good enough, and right enough, that Paul kissed him one more time, a little sip of a kiss, that John didn't mind at all.

“ _Okay?_ ” Paul repeated as he pulled away, and forced John’s eye again. “You won’t forget... John?”

“Jesus, Macca," John breathed, staring at him in something like wonder. "How the hell could I ever forget that? You know, Mimi's right. You’re a bold and reckless thing, sometimes.”

Paul smiled. “Only for you, it seems.”

“Praps so, but you shouldn’t have done that,” John said.

“Why not? S’no one around.”

“Because, Paulie, if I had my way, we’d do that again, and for more than a little while, right here -- for hours, maybe -- and I'd exhaust you and get a lot closer to you, and even lean on you a bit. Even if you hurt.”

“Oh, yes?” Paul’s eyebrows went up. “And then what?”

“And then... apparently, you’d have to kill me for hurting you, as you keep threatening.”

His partner gave a slow smile as considered, finally nodding his head. “It's true, though, I would. I'd have no choice. I mean, I'd love to do... all like that." Suddenly he had a thought, and he smile grew. "You know, there’s a line from an old movie I saw once. Bette Davis, I think? Or Joan Crawford? Can’t remember. She’s on a porch with a fella. He’s a lecher.”

“A lecher?” John chuckled.

“Aye, you can see he's hot for her, and waitin' to snog off on her, but she just smiles at him and says, ‘ _I’d like to kiss ya, but I just washed my hair_.’" Paul affected an American's Southern drawl. "Then she just walks away from him. It’s brilliant.”

They tamped out their cigarettes in the same moment. “And what’s that story got to do with me, Macca? Or is this just your concussion talking?”

“Well, no, John. Y'notice, I used your name, _John_?” Paul wiggled his eyebrows playfully and John blushed outright. “It's all about... I’d kinda like to kiss ya, only…” He sighed in real exhaustion and gave John his hand. “Help me up, then? I’m a bit peaky, now.”

“I see that.” John helped him to his feet. “You’ll be sleepin’ before he hit the first corner toward home, I think.”

“Hang on, hang on,” Paul said, as John picked up their cases. He looked all about, holding his head as though it hurt. "Where's Mimi's posy," he frowned.

The boys made a quick search, and then John opened his case and dug around, holding the flowers aloft. "Here, son."

Taking it from John's hand, Paul took another appreciative sniff of that spicy scent. Carnations were simple things, but he did love them. He kissed the small bouquet and then, leaning on John's arm and bending stiffly, left it where Mary McCartney's headstone would have been. After that, he simply stood in silence for a moment, looking down at the grass.

“Bye, Mum,” he said softly. “I’ll come again, now I know where you are…thanks to John, here. Pray for us, would ye?”

He ducked his head a moment, crossed himself again, and then joined up with Lennon, who had moved a bit away.

“I wonder if I'll have to live a long time before I see her again," Paul mused to John.

“Hopin’ to die young, are you?”

“No…but…I don’t want to have to wait seventy or eighty years. Won’t be able to stand it, you know?”

John put an arm around Paul’s shoulder. “I know. Me neither.”

“Let me carry the empty case, yeah,” Paul offered.

“Nay. Carry yourself, son, you look just about able to do that.”

As they headed back, Paul’s chatter slowed down, along with his steps. By the time they reached the bus stop, he was truly done in, but he still wanted to talk. He seemed to want to close in on an idea that had taken hold of him. “But let me ask you, John,” he said quietly as he rested against a streetlight pole. “What does it mean, this thing with us? What’s it all about?”

“What all, Macca love?”

“Well, you know…you like birds. I like birds. I wouldn't mind another go in the deep grass with Ratty Ellen if it comes to that…”

“Yeah, and...?” John asked guardedly, as they boarded the bus and took seats below, where it was uncrowded and Paul wouldn’t have to climb.

“Well, and...and yet…You know. _I’d like to kiss ya…but my da just washed my hair._ ” Paul smiled just a little but his eyes were already closing. "It's a mystery."

“ _This thing with us..._ " John repeated softly.

“Yeah...” 

"But Macca," John said in a low voice a moment later. "You can say it to me anytime, that line. Even though I'm not a lecher. Wouldn't mind hearin' you say what you'd like." John put his hand on Paul's wrist and gave a squeeze. "I think I know what you were sayin' back there. And it's the same for me."

“Johnny," Paul's hand slipped just over John's. "You know if I said it I’d mean it, and if I meant it, you’d love it. I don’t understand it. But it’s true.” His words were beginning to slur.

“Aye,” John agreed as he watched his partner's lights go out before the first stop sign came up.

For the quarter-hour’s ride to Forthlin Road, John sat in perfect contentment, watching his partner sleep and heal, not moving a muscle once Paul’s head came to rest upon his shoulder. “I don’t understand it, either, ya bonny-faced chieftain,” he whispered as he looked at Paul’s face in weary slumber.

“But you’re right, love," he finished the thought. "It's true. Every word, and then some.”

***THE END***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this story to its conclusion. The film scene Paul quotes features Bette Davis in the 1932 film "A Cabin in the Cotton." You can appreciate how she became a huge star, even with her unconventional looks, in this 8 second clip, with contains the quote. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTa3rnWDoEs


End file.
